Seoul to test indigenous robot for deep sea mining

The country is set to test its first-ever deep sea mining robot, whose success may enable the start of mining billions of dollars of resources sitting on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, the government said Wednesday. The indigenously built deep-sea mining robot, MineRo, will be tested Friday for its maneuverability in waters off South Korea’s southeastern coast, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. The 25-ton robot is designed to operate at a depth of over 5,000 meters. This week’s test, however, will be conducted at a depth of 1,380 meters, the ministry said. “The upcoming test is the first deep-sea testing of the mining robot MineRo, which was built indigenously by our own technology,” the ministry said in a press release. “It will check the robot’s ability to operate and maneuver in deep-sea conditions.” South Korea has secured exclusive rights to develop a 75,000 square-meter zone, known as the Clarion-Clipperton zone, located some 2,000 kilometers southeast of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, South Korean News Agency (Yonhap) reported. Earlier exploration programs have shown that the area may hold up to 560 million tons of manganese ore deposits, worth some US$370 billion, according to the ministry. A successful test of the MineRo this week will be followed by another test at a depth of 2,000 meters, it said. Seoul plans to begin mining in the Clarion-Clipperton zone starting in 2015.