TMC: A Deep-Sea Gamble

Now, I’ve seen a lot of things in my time poking around the markets – companies promising to revolutionize everything from dog grooming to interplanetary travel. But this one, TMC The Metals Company (TMC 4.70%), is…different. It’s a seven-dollar stock, currently, which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly setting the world on fire. But the people at TMC seem to think it could, potentially, be worth seven or eight times that. Which is a fairly ambitious claim, even by the standards of ambitious claims.

They’re deep-sea miners, you see. Not the sort who strap on a helmet and go looking for coal, but a company trying to vacuum up polymetallic nodules from the bottom of the Pacific. Nodules, for the uninitiated, are lumpy little formations containing metals like nickel, cobalt, and manganese. Apparently, there are enough of these things scattered around the Clarion-Clipperton Zone – a rather remote bit of ocean – to make all our current land-based reserves look a bit…modest. The U.S. Geological Survey reckons it’s got more nickel, cobalt, and manganese than everything we’ve already dug up. And a comparable amount of copper. It’s a bit like discovering a spare planet, really, only this one is already here, just…underwater.

TMC’s first project, they estimate, could be worth around $24 billion. Now, estimating is a funny business. It’s a bit like trying to predict the weather – you can get a general idea, but things have a habit of changing. The real question, of course, is how much it will cost them to actually get these nodules up, process them, and turn them into something useful – battery-grade metals, mostly. They’re not giving that number up easily, which is understandable, I suppose. But if their projections are even remotely accurate, the potential revenue from these nodules is in the tens of billions, maybe more. It’s a substantial undertaking, to put it mildly.

There’s a catch, naturally. You didn’t really think it would be simple, did you? They can’t just start hoovering up the seafloor just yet. They need permission. From the International Seabed Authority, a UN-backed organization. They’re still hammering out the rules for deep-sea mining, which is taking a while. Bureaucracy, you know how it is. There’s some talk of a workaround through the U.S. government, but that seems unlikely. TMC will almost certainly need the ISA’s blessing before they can proceed. It’s a bit like waiting for a committee to agree on what color to paint a fence – it could take a while.

They’re hoping to start commercial production in late 2027. They’ve got about $116 million in cash at the moment, which sounds like a lot, but they’re burning through about $10 to $11 million a quarter. And that rate is likely to increase as they ramp up production. It’s a bit like trying to fill a bathtub with a leaky faucet – you need a steady stream of water, or you’re going to be disappointed. It’s a cash-intensive business, let’s just say that.

Now, I’m not suggesting this is a sure thing. Far from it. Deep-sea mining is a new and largely untested field. There are environmental concerns, regulatory hurdles, and the simple fact that things rarely go according to plan. But, given its current valuation and the potential upside, a position in TMC could, conceivably, be a ticket to a more comfortable future. It’s a long shot, certainly. But sometimes, the most interesting opportunities are found in the most unlikely places. And the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is, without a doubt, an unlikely place.

2026-02-13 04:13

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