Production limits — who benefits?

One of the main issues contributing to the US-instigated hiatus in negotiations on the Draft Convention for the Law of the Sea has been the question of production controls for manganese nodule mining. As the text stands, production controls cover both the total amount of metals produced from nodules in any year and also the maximum quantity which any single operator will be licensed to produce annually. Both types of control use the nickel content of nodules mined as the specified limit. The overall controls relate production to projected growth in world nickel consumption. In this note, some of the implications of the methods used to calculate production ceilings are explored. The likely success of the regulations in achieving their stated objectives can then be discussed.