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of payments position that would accrue from U.S. production of metals from the nodules. He indicated the possibility of gross value of production as almost $160 million a year initially; this would certainly increase with time. Mr. Hood, President and Board Chairman of the Shipbuilders Council of America, has described the large increase in business for ports and shipyard facilities that would be generated in ocean mining.

It seems clear that the best hope for a new legal regime lies in the prompt passage of S. 1134. It would provide rights that would be exclusive as against other U.S. parties and against the citizens of reciprocating states; it would provide insurance against loss from another person, and would grant relief from more burdensome requirements that might be imposed under an international regime later agreed to by the United States. With such assurances, exploitation could go forward under its own impetus. If uncertainties continue because of our exclusive reliance on the United Nations, exploitation will be inhibited. It is essential in our national interest to proceed expeditiously. Great concern is expressed lest S. 1134 appear as unilateral action and therefore disturb some other countries, notably the developing nations. Passage of S. 1134 would perhaps precipitate a rush to action, on the other hand, either to reciprocate or to get on with a generally agreed treaty. Rather than disturb the negotiating atmosphere in the U.N., as we have been warned, passage of S. 1134 would clear the air by indicating that the U.S. means business and stimulate other states to get on with the job of producing a generally agreed treaty.

I urge prompt passage of S. 1134.

Senator METCALF. Mr. Dubs.

STATEMENT OF MARNE A. DUBS, AMERICAN MINING CONGRESS

Mr. DUBS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Marne A. Dubs. I am Director of the Ocean Resources Department.

I am here as a representative of the American Mining Congress, and I am a member of its Ad Hoc Committee on Undersea Mineral Resources. I also am a member of the U.S. Department of State's Advisory Committee on the Law of the Sea, and have served as an expert on the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. Seabed Committee.

I will first like to summarize my prepared written statement and then briefly discuss some of the technical matters which I believe to be pertinent to the committee's consideration in this bill.

My written statement, which I submit for the record, discusses the relationship of S. 1134 to the ongoing consideration of the same problem area in the U.S. Seabed Committee. In discussing this relationship, my statement refers to Mr. Charles Brower's letter of March 1, 1973, as acting legal advisor to the State Department, to Senator Jackson giving executive branch views on this legislation. I do not know whether Mr. Brower's March 1 letter is already a part of the record of these hearings, but if it is not, I would request that it be included in the record.

Senator METCALF. We have the letter and it has been incorporated at the appropriate place.

[The letter referred to above appears on p. 15.]

Mr. DUBS. My statement points out that S. 1134 clearly is not unilateral in the pejorative sense used in the United Nations since its provisions do not interfere with the existing freedoms of any State or of anyone except persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. It does not convey to any person in the United States any rights exertable against other states and their citizens or any rights to sea bottom land. Certainly, S. 1134 does not convey the right to mine that right exists and has been affirmed by the executive branch of our Government on numerous occasions. Stripped to bare bones, S. 1134 merely provides for regulation of the activities of U.S. persons engaged in ocean mining and mitigates the uncertainties in the investment climate caused by the ongoing U.N. negotiations and the failure of the executive branch of the Government to make arrangements with other nations to avoid the possibility of interference with mining operations in the deep ocean.

My statement takes issue with the contention of some that S. 1134 preempts the Law of the Sea Conference. It points out that the real problem in the U.N. deliberations is that many lesser developed nations favor a regime in which an international operating agency carries out all exploration of the seabed and exploitation of the resources. There is no room in this scheme for access to these seabed resources by the United States and its private enterprise system. It is for this reason that the U.N. group opposes S. 1134 concepts.

On the other hand, we believe that operations under S. 1134 will provide a sound basis for future international regulation and that the number of possible operations in the next few years will in no way prejudice a future international regime for the long pull except

through useful real experience gained. It is sophistry to contend otherwise and the specter of unilateral action and preempting the Law of the Sea Conference raised by those seeking delays should be laid to rest for the nonissues they really are.

Finally I note that we cannot agree with the optimism of the executive branch regarding achieving the universal treaty, satisfactory to the United States, by mid-1975 and, of course, its appended concept-far from being accepted by others of a provisional regime. Our pessimism is based on the past poor record of the Seabed Committee in meeting objectives and our assessment of the current status of the work and the dim outlook of future progress which would have to be many times more effective than recent performance.

Our conclusion is that the preparatory work will not be sufficiently accomplished to permit an effective conference under the present schedule, and that it will be late 1976 or 1977 at the earliest before a conference could be concluded. This is too late, and it is clear that the universal international regime will not be available in time. Therefore, we believe S. 1134 should be passed into law to encourage the U.S. private enterprise system to proceed with the exploitation of ocean resources.

I have proposed discussing certain technical matters which would be pertinent to the committee's consideration of the bill, but it is difficult to choose those items which may be of most concern to the committee. If I should be wide of the mark or repeat what you already know, I hope that you will-by your questions-bring me to the heart of your concerns.

The first of these technical matters is the location, nature and extent of the manganese

Senator METCALF. Mr. Dubs, you are making a record here today, so you make this as good a record as you can, and I am going to try to ask you some questions to make a stronger record on the bill.

Mr. DUBS. Thank you, sir.

Senator METCALF. Don't hesitate to make as good a presentation as possible.

You have already made a couple of eloquent statements that I am going to quote about pending legislation.

Mr. DUBS. The first of these technical matters is the location, nature, and extent of the manganese nodule deposits. Manganese nodules of commercial interest are found on the ocean floor in a layer essentially one nodule thick and are approximately half buried in the mud. The average size of the nodules is in the range of 1 to 2 inches. They do not completely cover the bottom. The coverage may range from zero to 50 percent, and in some interesting deposits it is in the order of 30 to 35 percent. In both the size and the extent of the coverage is highly variable.

The weight abundance of this layer of nodules in a typical potential mine site may have an average concentration of 2 pounds per square foot, but will, as noted above, vary widely. Thus, a manganese nodule mine unlike any mine on land or any oil well must have great horizontal extent but will have negligible vertical dimensions and

thus direct comparison with past experience with mineral deposits is not meaningful.

These deposits occur far from land in water 12,000 to 20,000 feet deep. They are truly a product of the ocean abyss. Their environment is completely dark and the absence of light is accompanied by the absence of abundant life. In our day-to-day terms, the ocean bottom, where nodules are found, is a desert more devoid of life by far than the deserts of the Southwest United States. They only occur the sedimentation rate of material from continents or from life growing in the upper regions of the sea is very low.

Thus, nodules are quite isolated from the mainstream of the oceans' life.

The nodules do not occur uniformly in the world's oceans. Many areas are bare of nodules and even in a region considered rich in nodules, many portions of the region are, in fact, barren. It can be shown that nodules of commercial interest occur in discrete deposits of finite extent. The material of greatest commercial interest is found in the part of the ocean called an abyssal hill region. This means the sea floor is not flat but contains hills, cliffs, and obstacles which the miner must take into account. In fact, this structure of the ocean bottom reduces the availability of nodules to the miner and necessitates a larger mining area than otherwise might suffice. It will be of interest to the committee that the nodule deposits of greatest interest to the United States and to others in the world occur in the East-central Pacific, primarily south of a line between Hawaii and the United States and north of the Equator.

The chemical composition of the nodules is unusual and quite different from land minerals. Nodules of interest may contain from 1 to 1.6 percent nickel, three-quarters to 1.5 percent copper, cobalt on the order of 0.2 to 0.3 percent, and molybdenum of the order of 0.05 percent. These compositions vary widely and must be taken into account by the miner. Not all nodules in a mine site will be of acceptable grade for processing. The actual chemistry of nodules requires that a unique system of metallurgical processing must be devised specifically for processing nodules which will not be useful in handling other ores.

Thus, it is seen that nodules are a unique mineral deposit with enormous problems to be solved in exploration, mining, and metallurgical processing to bring them to the economic use of mankind and specifically to the use of the United States. From the above, it should be understood that nodule mining requires large areas and mining and processing tailored to specific mine sites. Although the basic abundance of nodules in a mine site may only be 2 pounds per square foot, nodules available to the miner are reduced by topographically unminable areas, the existence of below-grade nodules, variations in abundance of the nodules, and the technical performance of the mining equipment. Thus, less than one-half of the 2 pounds may be recoverable. It is noted that the nodule contains 30 percent water, which further reduces the actual tonnage of dry material. When these factors are all taken into account, one arrives at the size of blocks described in S. 1134.

Senator METCALF. What is the other material?

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Mr. DUBS. The other material in the nodules is largely clay, so that the nodules will contain these metals and their oxides, up to a total of about 70 percent of their dry weight, and then the remaining roughly 30 percent is clay-deep ocean clay.

Incidentally, similar to those in the U.S. Draft Treaty, I have prepared in connection with work done for the government by the government to justify many provisions of this bill. This is a paper which was prepared by Mr. Art Greenwald of Deepsea Ventures and myself in response to this government request for technical acceptance. This contains many of the

Senator METCALF. When you say "the Government," is this the Department of the Interior?

Mr. DUBS. This was in response to a review by the Interior Department and Commerce Department of the technical aspects of ocean mining. We believe that this

Senator METCALF. Is this in response to a request from the State Department?

Mr. DUBS. No. This was not in response to a request from the State Department.

This was in response to a request by the Interior and Commerce Departments, although the State Department did monitor this work.

I thought this paper would provide the committee with much information that they need, and I would propose that we send it to the committee for inclusion into the record.

Senator METCALF. Do you have a copy of it with you?

Mr. DUBS. I don't have a copy which I could provide you with today. I would like to be able to send it to you.

Senator METCALF. Without objection that paper will be incorporated into the record.

[The paper referred to above appears on p. 602 of the appendix.] Mr. DUBS. Thank you, sir.

Another technical matter of possible interest to the committee is the technical shape of a commercial enterprise in ocean mining. First, the mine sites will undoubtedly be in the region of the Pacific, described above. There will be no permanent installations at the mine site. However, there will have been carried out at great cost extensive and detailed examination of the mine site in order to choose it in the first place and to prepare detailed mining plans. The mining equipment will be mobile and move over the mine site and, in fact, will be tailored to that site. There will, of course, be some navigation aids deployed.

The ore will be transferred from the mining ship to a transport vessel and moved to an onshore processing plant. This plant will be specifically tailored to the ore and will not be useful for other purposes. It is noted that over half the investment and operating costs are in this onshore processing plant. Because of the nature of the nodules, they will have no utility in commerce until they are processed. The major products of this plant will always include nickel, copper, cobalt, and molybdenum, and manganese as the marketplace requires.

The scale of this operation will have to be large since one of its virtues is the economy of scale. A single operation may handle from