Researchers chart fuel-rich areas in Arctic for first time

Race to claim gas areas prompts boundary map to head off future disputes between nations including Russia and Canada
James Meikle and agencies
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday August 06 2008 13:31 BST

The race to carve up the Arctic for its oil, gas and mineral reserves has been charted for the first time in an attempt to alert international policy makers to serious territorial disputes that could result.

A new map (pdf) is designed to illustrate historical, ongoing and potential arguments about ownership in the competition to control areas rich in natural resources.
Its publication by Durham University researchers comes as a growing number of states including the UK cast their eyes towards polar regions and big slices of the ocean floors.
Countries must establish sovereignty over disputed territories if they are to exploit their undiscovered, technologically recoverable energy reserves.
The attempts to assert such rights have already alarmed conservationists who want better international protection for the poles as climate change melts the ice and opens up more land and seabeds for exploration.
Last year, a Russian submarine planted a flag on the seabed below the North Pole to highlight its claim to a big chunk of the Arctic. Other disputes could involve Canada, US , Denmark (through Greenland), Iceland and Norway.
The Arctic map has been prepared by Durham's International Boundaries Research Unit.
Its director, Martin Pratt, said a survey by the US Geological Survey estimated that a fifth of the so-far undiscovered but recoverable resources lay within the Arctic Circle. "We are talking 90 million barrels of oil, nearly 17 hundred trillion cubic feet. I cannot even imagine how much that is, but it is a lot. I suppose for any state, control is significant as other resources dwindle."
Pratt said the map was an attempt "to collate information and predict the way in which the Arctic region may eventually be divided up. The freezing land and seas of the Arctic are likely to be getting hotter in terms of geopolitics." There was likely to be increasing concern over damage to the "unique environment" of the Arctic.
"It is vulnerable and extracting oil and gas is not an environmentally friendly activity."Russia first made a submission about the areas to the UN over the area in 2001. Claims are made under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Coastal states can extend their rights beyond the 200-mile limit from their shoreline if there is a continental shelf.
Russia claims its continental shelf extends along a mountain chain under the Arctic called the Lomonosov Ridge. Its flag-waving last year was part of its determination to provide more weight to the claim, which have to be verified by geological and sub-sea surveys.The US has yet to even sign up to the UN convention