1998 Year of the Ocean Ocean Energy and Minerals 



Beers, are operating offshore both Namibia and South Africa with very large dredges and at-sea 

 processing plants. Diamonds are now dredged in water as deep as 1 80 meters and remotely 

 operated bulldozers with large suction hoses connected to a processing ship have been tested for 

 mining in even deeper water. A fleet of over 30 bucket-line dredges are currently working off 

 Indonesia, processing over 40 million cubic meters a year of sediments to recover tin ore. 

 Although no development of the metals-rich manganese nodule deposits has occurred to date, 

 mining exploration licenses have been held since 1 984 by several multinational companies in an 

 area of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Central America. There has also been recent 

 interest by Japanese and Chinese firms in manganese nodules off the Cook Islands and other 

 areas in the Pacific. 



Mineral deposits in U.S. waters (other than sand and gravel) include massive phosphate 

 beds beneath the continental shelf from North Carolina to northern Florida, titanium-rich heavy 

 mineral sands off the East Coast from New Jersey to Florida, gold-bearing sand and gravel 

 deposits offshore Alaska, barite deposits offshore southern California, manganese nodules on the 

 Blake Plateau offshore South Carolina and Georgia, and the cobalt and platinum-rich crusts in 

 the Hawaiian Exclusive Economic Zone area. Gold was recovered in state waters off Nome, 

 Alaska, from 1986 to 1990 by the WestGold Corporation using the Bima, a converted Indonesian 

 tin mining dredge. Despite the relatively rich deposits, the operation was closed mainly due to 

 steadily declining gold prices. 



ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH OCEAN ENERGY AND 

 MINERAL RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT 



Energy Issues 



Public Perception 



From its begirming, the OCS program of the United States has faced controversy over the 

 ownership and management of offshore oil and gas resources. Some of the controversy predates 

 the inception of the federal program in 1954, as both the federal government and individual 

 coastal states vied for jurisdiction over the nation's offshore area, with the former eventually 

 gaining title to the great majority of the continental shelf. Additional controversy has arisen over 

 the years as concerns about the program's environmental and socioeconomic impacts have 

 increased. Some of this concern is attributable to a perceived imbalance in governmental and 

 community benefits and costs occasioned by OCS development. In addition, the full range of 

 benefits and costs — and those of alternatives, such as importing oil by supertanker — are not 

 easily or readily identifiable. 



The 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker oil spill that occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, 

 profoundly affected the public's perception of the OCS program even though the spill was not 

 caused by OCS oil and gas drilling. That event, which rekindled concerns first raised after the 

 Santa Barbara OCS oil spill in 1969, received intense and lengthy media coverage. This 



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