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— VJhat kind of safeguards are there in the Authority to 

 promote a fair and orderly development of seabed resources so 

 that the United States will not have to be captive to a few 

 mineral exporting nations? 



A. Up to this point, it has not proven possible for 

 producers of the four metals found in commercial quantities 

 in polymetallic nudules to maintain artificially high prices 

 for an extended period of time. Efforts by INCO to set and 

 maintain a producer price for nickel were abandoned in the 

 mid-1970s under pressure of increased world supplies, multi- 

 plying sources, and soft demand. CIPEC, the copper exporter's 

 group, has tried unsuccessfully for several years to restrain 

 exports during periods of low copper prices. A multiplicity 

 of manganese suppliers, control of some important sources by 

 steel companies, and the ability and willingness up to this 

 point of South Africa to provide increasing quantities of 

 manganese at stable prices have kept prices comparatively 

 low. Efforts by Zaire and Zambia during the past two years 

 to restrict exports of cobalt and thus to increase prices 

 have broken down under the pressure of their need for foreign 

 exchange, decreased demand due to substitution efforts and the 

 global recession, and the opening of new sources of supply. 



One would expect that mineral-exporting countries would 

 seek to delay and limit seabed mining. The current text 

 reflects their efforts. 



A major task of that part of the review devoted to seabed 

 mining will be to analyze the current text to see to what 

 extent it contains the kinds of safeguards you mention. We 



