The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Research Council of Italy is organizing the Workshop “From Offshore Oil & Gas to Deep Seabed Mining: new technologies and emerging issues” with the aim of fostering collaborations and knowledge sharing between the two industry sectors and the academia.

The event will bring together a forum of oil & gas operators, contractors at the forefront of deep seabed mining and scientists to analyze and discuss together several emerging issues in deep seabed operations. These are related specifically to technological requirements and overlaps between deep seabed mining and the well-established best practices and techniques of the offshore oil & gas industry, new technologies for remote sensing and environmental observing systems and real-time infrastructure monitoring.

The Workshop will be centered on fruitful and cross-disseminating discussions between leading operators in the supply chain for the offshore industry and mining contractors that hold exploration licenses in the Area, beyond national jurisdiction, and will most probably be active during the next exploitation phase.

Whereas the exploitation phase of deep seabed mining is soon approaching in the Area and regulations on mining-related activities are in an advanced stage of drafting at the International Seabed Authority, it becomes essential to identify technology gaps and challenges that can contribute to the definition of realistic standards and guidelines for the operations and remote monitoring. The availability of new technologies and methods has cross-cutting implications for baseline data collection, environmental impact assessment and surveillance mechanisms for environmental safety.

The Workshop was initially planned to be held in Rome 20-21 May 2020 at the seat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but had to be cancelled due to the COVID19 outbreak and has now been reconvened on 18-19 November 2020 online.

Session 1 on November 18th will deal with: comparison of value chains, knowledge and technology transfer and environmental challenges faced from offshore oil & gas and deep seabed mining experiences. Session 2 on November 19th will discuss concurrent development of innovative technologies, best practices and state-of-the art efforts for remote sensing environmental monitoring of the Deep and Open Sea.

The Workshop is organized in collaboration with the Ministry of Economic Development of Italy and with the support of Saipem and Fincantieri, which have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote the development of deep seabed mining and in partnership with the International Seabed Authority.

A detailed agenda and other meeting documents will be available on the workshop event page at https://www.cnr.it/it/evento/16920 in due course, including an information note on the use of the online WebEx platform.

For further enquiries and expressions of interests, please contact:

Marzia Rovere, research scientist @Institute of Marine Sciences, National Research Council This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Daniele Bosio First Counsellor, Coordinator for Seas and Ocean Affairs @Direction General for Political Affairs and Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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