The Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute (KORDI) says it has designated a 40-thousand square kilometer area of the nation’s undersea mining block in the Pacific as a preferred mining site.

The nation also has prospecting rights for a 75-thousand square kilometer block in the deep sea, two kilometers southeast of Hawaii.

The institute noted that the mining site contains abundant copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese nodules.

A researcher of the intsitute said that the institute was aiming to develop deep sea mining technologies by 2015 and transfer them to private companies. The researcher added that commercial mining of the Pacific site would be possible in 2020 after conducting economic evaluations.