Foreign partners eyed for Benham Rise survey mapping

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is seeking foreign assistance for an ambitious plan to undertake a resource mapping survey on Benham Rise.

Carlos Primo David, executive director of DOST’s Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technologies Research and Development (PCIEERD), said that talks with a Japanese firm are underway.

The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) last February had expressed interest in working with DOST-PCIEERD to explore Benham Rise, which borders the deep of Japan in the north Pacific.

South Korea’s Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) had also expressed interest in providing assistance to the Philippines on an exploration effort in the area.

The two Asian powerhouse economies are both aggressively pursuing deep water mining.

In 2011, the Japanese government started a program funded with a six-billion-yen budget to identify resources in their deep seas in southern waters bordering the Philippines. This yielded data that they have $4 trillion worth of resources composed of hydrothermal deposits, methane hydrates, polymetallic nodules and cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts.

DOST-PCIEERD was able to bring experts from JAMSTEC and KIOST into the country when it organized the 1st Philippine Deep Sea Resources Summit last February at the Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria in Ortigas, Quezon City.

David said that the DOST was in the early stages of mapping out a resource exploration plan for Benham Rise, pointing out that this was precisely the reason they staged the summit last February.

“We are not a small country. We are a large ocean nation. Our ocean territory is much bigger than our total landmass,” David pointed out.

“Resources in the deep sea may very well fuel our economy in the not so distant future,” David added.