793 
hundreds of millions of tons of manganese oxides in the pavement 
and nodule form. 
However, the assay of this material is quite low. Manganese would 
be say 20 percent while its nickel would be a fraction of 1 percent 
which suggests that it would not be economic to recover. 
Mr. Downine. Thank you. 
Mr. Lennon. Thank you, Mr. Downing. 
Mr. Flipse, the paper that is included in the package that was: 
furnished to each member of the committee entitled “An Engineering 
Approach to Ocean Mining,” was presented in Houston, Tex. ay 1h May 
of this year, May 18 through 21, to the First Annual Oftshore Tech- 
nology Conference. I assume that at that conference which was par- 
ticipated in by the various societies and organizations that you men- 
tioned in the first part of this statement the discussion was in depth 
even to a greater extent than was done here this morning. 
I can see how it was a great challenge. In hurriedly scanning this 
paper that was presented at that offshore technology conference, I 
see that your sister company, the Newport News Shipbuilding and 
Dry Dock Co., which is now Tenneco, I believe, have been involved 
in this program since approximately 1962. 
What you have shown here by pictures this morning and what you 
have referred to represents a sustained effort, and obviously represents 
a substantial effort over a period of almost 7 years, doesn’t it? 
Mr. Fuipsr. Yes, sir. 
Mr. Lennon. I think you say in the paper that you reach the con- 
clusion on the basis of the presentation at that conference in May that 
the time for ocean floor deposit exploitation is now and that the tools 
that you demonstrated here this morning by your pictures and your 
statement are at hand. 
In point of time, when do you think that you will process these 
nodules to the extent that you can determine the economic exploit- 
ability and feasibility of such a program of ocean bottom surfacial 
mining ? 
Mr. “Fripse. Mr. Chairman, we expect that our exploration work, 
our prototype test and our processing-pilot-plant work should be com- 
pleted by the end of 1970. We are using as a target the end of next 
summer but, with the necessary evaluation and so on, we hope to have 
the technology available to a consortium so that the program can get 
under way in the full scale business of building the dredging ships, 
putting up the processing plant and so forth in the early 1970’s, 1971 
on. 
We would expect then that the system could be in full production 
by the mid-1970’s, say 1974 or 1975. 
Mr. Lennon. But I assume with obviously the great amount of 
funds that have been expended in the last 7 years to bring you to 
the point where you are today that your company, your engineers 
and your scientists have confidence that this is going to be in ‘time a 
profitable enterprise. 
Hopefully that is so. What do you say ? 
Mr. Fuipsr. We certainly share your hopes, sir, and we have made. 
our professional commitments in the belief that this can be done. 
Tenneco is not a benevolent organization and they have been: con-. 
