Chatham Rock granted mining permit for Chatham rise, still needs EPA sign-off

Chatham Rock granted mining permit for Chatham rise, still needs EPA sign-off
Dec. 6 (BusinessDesk) - Chatham Rock Phosphate has been granted a 20-year mining permit to extract phosphate nodules from an 820 square kilometre area of the Chatham Rise, the first key step in its approvals to strip the sea floor of the fertiliser chemical. The permit is the first granted under the amended Crown Minerals Act which came into effect in May. The proposal to mine phosphate off the ocean floor near the Chatham Islands would be a world-first, and could produce an industry that replaces imported Moroccan phosphate, widely used in a...