Gerard Barron whips out what looks, at least to me, like a fossilised dog turd from his jacket pocket. It’s his prop. His killer sales moment.
You know he’s done this a thousand times before — to would-be investors, journalists, politicians, and airport staff wanting to know what that lumpy thing he’s trying to get through security screening is. Because everywhere he goes, Gerard Barron carries this rock.
This coal-coloured nugget could help him become one of the richest men on the planet.
Barron insists these lumps are the key to the world’s transition to clean, green energy. And the Australian businessman is banking on Donald Trump to help him realise his dream of scooping them up from the sea floor.
With his rock star hairdo, stubbly beard, black T-shirt and jeans, Barron oozes the, “I’m so cool I don’t give a shit” chic of a Silicon Valley tech bro. No wonder his hero is Elon Musk. Like Musk, the Australian entrepreneur knows how to put on a show.
“These rocks, these polymetallic nodules … they happen to be filled with all of the critical minerals and rare earths that we’re going to need a lot more of in the future,” Barron says.
I look down to the potato-sized thing in Barron’s palm. It appears wholly unremarkable. Except these polymetallic nodules are remarkable. They’re millions and millions of years old and they lie up to 6 kilometres down, in the inky depths at the bottom of the ocean.
“They estimate there’s more than 20 billion tonnes of nodules in the area where we are focused,” Barron says. “They’re worth a lot of money. I’ve seen estimates that say $20 trillion, and that probably feels about right.”
Gerard Barron rattles off what these deep-sea potatoes contain. Manganese (good for steel making), nickel (EV batteries), cobalt (also EV batteries), and copper (loads of things). Barron often tells investors and interviewers that these nodules are so abundant on the sea floor that it reminds him of a carpet of golf balls on a driving range, just waiting to be scooped up.
For Barron, the deep sea is the final frontier. And he wants to be the first to mine it commercially.
Barron’s first millions
Barron is a determined man. And while not known for being media shy, he tells me as we are about to roll the cameras that he agreed to be interviewed by Four Corners because we share a bond, of sorts.
“[I’m the] son of a dairy farmer. Australian, proudly so. And went to Oakey State High School, not far from you, Mark, where you grew up,” Barron says.
It also turns out that decades ago Gerard Barron’s mother worked as a bookkeeper for my grandfather, who owned a mechanic’s garage in the tiny town of Jondaryan, about 170 kilometres west of Brisbane. It seems Barron (like myself) had aspirations beyond the family business and the great plains of the Western Darling Downs.
“I grew up knowing what I didn’t want to do, and that was be a dairy farmer,” he tells me. “I was always attracted to things that hadn’t been done before.”
After setting up companies at university, and making some shrewd investments in the years after, Barron quickly accumulated millions.
“It was set up in 1994. Here we are more than 30 years later and still the one thing they were meant to do, which was put in place a regulatory environment has not happened,” complains Barron, who has exploration contracts with the ISA.
The ISA’s secretary-general Leticia Carvalho warns that rushing the mining regulations means risking the world’s last relatively pristine environment.
“It’s taking long because it’s a very complex issue,” Carvalho says.
Carvalho says the ocean floor must be protected for humankind. (Four Corners: Ryan Sheridan)
Carvalho is a Brazilian oceanographer and a seasoned diplomat who took over as ISA boss at the start of the year, leading a small team out of the authority’s HQ in Kingston, Jamaica. While she only has a few dozen staff and a relatively tiny budget, Carvalho’s jurisdiction is mind blowing — just over half the world’s seabed.
“It’s a pristine piece of the Earth that was never touched by humanity before, not in scale. And it is protected by the law to be a humankind belonging, meaning it’s a global common.”
But this global common could soon be touched by humanity, in a big way. While the ISA is trying to develop regulations to balance exploitation against the protection of the ocean seabed, it’s facing a monumental challenge in the form of Donald Trump.
Trump’s ‘gold rush’
The United States has long refused to be a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and, unlike 169 member states and the EU, is not a member of the ISA.
Unencumbered by international conventions or multilateral forums, President Trump decided in April this year to go it alone. He signed an executive order to “rapidly” exploit and process seabed mineral resources and to create a streamlined permitting process to do just that.
“President Trump totally understands the precarious position that America finds itself in and is doing something about it,” Barron says.
That precarious position is because of China, which controls a dominant swathe of the world’s production and refining of critical minerals.
Retrieved nodules in the hold of a ship. (The Metals Company)
While Gerard Barron’s pitch for deep-sea mining has long been focused on the need for these critical minerals to help the world transition to clean, green technology and energy, his focus has shifted somewhat since the return of Donald Trump. Barron, like the US president, now says these minerals are also vital to the United States’ national security.
“President Xi has made it clear that China wants to dominate deep earth, deep space and deep ocean,” Barron says. “[Trump’s executive order is] a way of America getting a seat in the game, because at the moment they depend on China. COVID really opened their eyes to the fact that China dominates the supply chain.”
The Trump executive order instructs the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to fast-track permits to mine the sea floor in what are international waters in the Pacific Ocean. To celebrate the new permit regime, the once rather sober NOAA issued a truly Trumpian press release heralding the president’s executive order as certain to spark “the next gold rush”.
“It’s not going to trigger any gold rush. In fact, it’s going to open a Pandora’s box full of problems,” says environmental lawyer Duncan Currie.
Not surprisingly, Gerard Barron was the first to jump onboard the Trump gold rush.
“Our company was the first to submit a permit. And it also so happens that our company, The Metals Company, is by far the most advanced in this industry,” Barron says.
A polymetallic nodule sits on Trump’s desk in the Oval Office as he signs an executive order. (The White House)
The globe-trotting entrepreneur was in the White House when Trump signed the executive order. His favourite prop was too.
“We made a beautiful nodule, which we presented in a resin case. And I have it on good authority that even today, that nodule sits on the Resolute Desk in the White House.”
Shock and anger
The Metals Company’s permit applications under the Trump system shocked the International Seabed Authority, whose usually diplomatic secretary-general is uncharacteristically blunt about the US president’s move.
“It’s a matter of great concern that a country has decided to take a stand alone and a unilateral action,” says Leticia Carvalho. “It’s illegal … and challenges the rule of the law in the multilateral order.”
At the ISA’s most recent assembly there was anger too at Barron.
Delegates at the ISA’s most recent assembly, in Kingston, Jamaica. (Four Corners: Ryan Sheridan)
France’s Special Envoy Olivier Poivre D’Arvor described the Metals Company as a “misfortune company” and an “extremely bad” partner.
“We don’t need these minerals. We don’t have the financial model, we don’t have the economic model. We don’t have the good technology to go deep.”
Like many who challenge Barron, it earned the envoy a pointed rebuke.
“I’d say that’s a bit rich coming from that particular Frenchman. That same spokesman for France was also applauding China for being such an upstanding, adherer to international rules and law. I mean, convenient memory, I would say.”
Barron argues the environmental impacts of mining the sea floor are much less damaging than land-based mining. (Four Corners: Ryan Sheridan)
Barron is quick to hit back at opponents. He described Greenpeace, which has targeted TMC’s research and exploration, as “irresponsible”.
The ISA has now launched an investigation to determine if Barron’s company has breached international law and its existing contracts by signing up to Trump’s “gold rush”.
It warns litigation and sanctions could follow.
Barron rejects any suggestion his company has broken any rules.
“We are the most compliant contractor at the ISA because we’ve been out there spending hundreds of millions of dollars. We’ve been out there gathering all of this tremendous environmental data.”
‘No need to abandon ship’
But some believe mining the deep-sea simply isn’t financially viable.
Arnaud Vagner runs Iceberg Research, an investigative firm specialising in exposing listed companies he claims are overvalued and overhyped. He also engages in short selling — profiting from the decline of a stock. In May, his company released a report on The Metals Company.
“We compared the assumptions of the company and public information given by recently released public information given by TMC,” Vagner says.
“We saw that simply the financial projections of this company were not realistic. So the conclusion of the report is to say this is not viable. It’s a very sexy idea, very seducing idea to go so deep to find some minerals. But in mining everywhere in the world, the key question is cost. If your revenue is lower than your cost, it’s not viable.”
Barron says as a short seller, Vagner has a vested interest to talk down his company.
“They just take facts or speculation and try and turn it into an argument against the future value of the company.”
Arnaud Vagner believes The Metals Company is a repeat of Nautilus Minerals, from which Barron turned a $226,000 investment into $31 million. Except this time, on a larger scale.
“Once the company reaches a valuation which he thinks is the maximum valuation possible, he will leave the boat before things get worse,” predicts Vagner. “He will sell. That’s what I believe strongly, and he will probably make a lot of money by doing that.”
Barron, the son of a Queensland dairy farmer, whose potato-shaped nugget, along with his hopes of mining the deep, sit on the desk of the US president, insists he’s not going anywhere.
“This is the most exciting work project that you could ever wish for. There’ll be no need to abandon the ship,” Barron says.