Shares in The Metal Company (NASDAQ: TMV) jumped on Friday after a United States Regulator ruled the company’s deep-seabed mining application fully compliant.
The decision by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a federal scientific and regulatory agency within the Department of Commerce, advances the project in the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Pacific Ocean toward a potential final permit by early 2027, TMC said in a statement.
TMC’s application now enters certification, where it will be published in the Federal Register before a draft Environmental Impact Statement is released for public comment and finalized ahead of NOAA’s decision.
Shares of the company rose 4% to $5.43 in mid-afternoon U.S. trading, giving TMC a market capitalization of about $2.3 billion (C$3.1 billion). Earlier they climbed to as much as $5.65, well below their 52-week high of $11.35.
“This determination marks an important step forward in NOAA’s transparent, rules-based process,” CEO Gerard Barron said, citing years of scientific, environmental and engineering work underpinning the application.
The compliance ruling follows the company’s recent submission of nearly a decade of exploration data to the International Seabed Authority’s DeepData platform. The dataset, collected between 2013 and 2022 across the eastern CCZ between Mexico and Hawaii, includes biological and geochemical samples from the ocean surface to depths exceeding 4,000 metres.
Expanded area
TMC’s consolidated application spans about 65,000 sq. km, up from roughly 25,000 sq. km in its 2025 filing, and outlines an estimated 619 million tonnes of wet nodules with additional upside.
NOAA’s updated framework allows exploration and commercial recovery approvals to be reviewed together, potentially shortening the regulatory timeline.
In January, the agency revised the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act, the federal law governing deep-sea mining in international waters, to combine exploration licences and commercial recovery permits into a single process, replacing the previous two-step approach.
The milestone strengthens TMC’s position as it seeks to develop a new source of critical metals while navigating a closely watched approval process for deep-sea mining.