JOHANNESBURG – Regulations governing deep-sea mining will take longer to finalise due to the global pandemic, a group of Latin American and Caribbean countries said, creating uncertainty for companies looking to mine the seabed for battery metals.

The delayed negotiations also pose a potential difficulty for companies seeking financing from investors to mine the sea floor.

The UN's International Seabed Authority (ISA) is working on global rules covering sea bed mining, which is not allowed until the regulations are finalised.

The tiny Pacific state of Nauru has tried to speed up the process by triggering in June a two-year deadline for the rules to be completed. Nauru is a sponsoring state of mining company The Metals Co subsidiary Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (NORI).

Costa Rica, on behalf of a group of Latin American and Caribbean countries, said "no tangible progress has been achieved" towards the adoption of regulations and guidelines for mining, in a submission dated October 13 and published on the ISA website on Thursday.

The letter said the ISA Council might not be able to finalise and adopt the required regulations within the two-year period, adding that delegations are far from reaching agreement on key issues.

Countries represented in the submission included Argentina, the Bahamas, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Jamaica, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago.

A spokesperson for the ISA said the body had no comment to make on the letter by Costa Rica, but said the ISA's Legal and Technical Commission prepared 10 draft standards and guidelines through remote meetings in 2020 and 2021, and those have been submitted for public consultation for three months.

A group of African nations in July also criticised the fast-tracking of negotiations, saying the task of agreeing on regulations by mid-2023 is "seemingly insurmountable".

Deep-sea mining involves sucking up potato-sized rocks rich in cobalt, nickel and other battery metals from the Pacific Ocean floor at depths of 4-6 kms.

Many scientists and environmentalists have called for a ban on deep-sea mining, saying it could cause lasting damage to little-understood habitats.

Companies including carmaker BMW and Alphabet Inc's Google have joined a call by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for a moratorium on the practice.

The ISA in September said meetings of the ISA Council and ISA Assembly would be held at its Kingston, Jamaica headquarters from December 6 to December 10 and December 13 to December 15, but with restrictions on delegation size due to Covid-19.

Chile and two environmental groups have requested the meetings be postponed due to the restrictions on delegations, in letters seen by Reuters.

Jamaica's Covid-19 measures include a quarantine period even for vaccinated arrivals, and a 50-person limit on meetings, making it difficult for representatives from around the world to attend.