Defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) is in early talks with undersea mining companies to open access to two dormant seabed exploration licenses it has held since the 1980s The move signals a renewed US push to tap the ocean floor for critical minerals. The licenses, which cover swaths of the eastern Pacific seabed in international waters, were awarded to Lockheed by US regulators decades ago during a previous wave of interest in deep-sea mining. Though the projects never progressed to extraction, they are now gaining fresh attention as nations and corporations seek alternative sources of key minerals used in electric vehicles, defense technologies, and clean energy systems. “We are in early stages of conversations with several companies about giving them access to our licences and allowing them to process those materials,” Frank St. John, Lockheed’s chief operating officer, told the Financial Times. While St. John declined to quantify the potential…
