TOKYO — Japan will extract rare earth minerals from an offshore deposit in a first-of-its-kind pilot project that will begin January next year, Nikkei has learned.
The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) will station the Chikyu, a deep-sea scientific drilling vessel, 100 to 150 kilometers from the coast of Minami-Torishima Island, a coral atoll about 1,950 km southeast of Tokyo.
