Show Harnessing The Ocean In the late the Vietnam first mon social problems of the and the environmental program all took precedence over the U.S. effort to harness the resources of the one significant development was the creation in 1969 of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric to carry on federal research in With worldwide shortages of and other vital commodities becoming more severe each nations have found it imperative to reach an agreement on usage of the IN some countries were in attendance at a 10 week conference in Venezuela in an attempt to hammer out an international treaty for the rights to and explore the Also discussed by the participants was the question of sovereignty rights to miles A supplementary conference is scheduled for 1975 in Vienna to take a vote on the WHILE oceanographic progress has been there has been one related area where growth has been dramatic-the offshore oil Long before the threat of Arab monopoly was oil managements foresaw the rich opportunities in underwater UP UNTIL most offshore drilling has been confined to the continental But engineers now have the technology and equipment to explore and extract in almost any body of water to virtually any offshore activity is yielding 19 percent of the world's total oil By the late offshore wells are expected to provide 50 percent or better of the The petroleum companies' outlays are over billion a figure that is expected to double by A UNITED Nations report estimates proved reserves of offshore oil at billion barrels with billion barrels more on continental times the proved U.S. reserves and three times those of Saudi Small wonder that over are Involved in offshore Of these about 40 countries are now about to or have made promising U.S. firms involved in the industry include Santa Fe Reading and Offshore Global and The Research Department of Babson's Reports maintains hold advices on stocks of all these the second most lucrative oceanographic activity is the harvesting of nodules of deposits usually found in deep waters far from the continental One mining authority believes there could be trillion tons of high-grade nodules in the Pacific Ocean I CONTAINED therein are manganese nickel copper and cobalt An economical recovery-processing method for these nodules would importantly reduce America's dependence on the import of such Several U.S. companies are engaged in exploring for these nodules along with other ocean Two publicly owned American companies operating ships and equipment are Copper and Privately owned Summa controlling arm of Howard Hughes is also engaged in this |