US mission to Arctic will lay claim to gas reserves

[Raineyrocks]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2549271/US-mission-to-Arctic-will-lay-claim-to-gas-reserves.html


US mission to Arctic will lay claim to gas reserves
Canada and the US are teaming up to for a research mission to the Arctic continental shelf as part of their bid to lay claim to the vast oil and natural gas reserves believed to lie beneath the Arctic Ocean floor.


By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles
Last Updated: 1:09PM BST 13 Aug 2008

A US Coast Guard cutter will set out on Thursday on a three-week trip to map a relatively unexplored area known as the Chukchi borderland, about 600 miles north of Alaska.

The cutter Healy will then launch again on September 6 accompanied by Canadian scientists aboard an icebreaker, who will conduct further tests to help identify the extent of the continental shelf north of Alaska.

The US is attempting to prove the Alaskan continental shelf stretches far beyond the 200-mile limit where coastal countries have sovereign rights over natural resources.

The joint operation comes amid increasing international competition to tap the Arctic's unexplored energy stores, thought to include 90 billion barrels of oil, about 15 per cent of the world's undiscovered reserves, as well as a third of the world's undiscovered natural gas, according to the US Geological Survey.

The five countries that border the Arctic Ocean - Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the US - dispute the sovereignty of the region's waters.

Russia has claimed 460,000 square miles of Arctic waters and in a move marking the escalating rivalry, planted its flag on the ocean floor of the North Pole last summer.

Recent record oil prices have fuelled the race to exploit the polar territory's energy sources while melting ice floes have helped research crews gain access to the region.

Healy's new mission represents the fourth year that the US has collected data to define the limits of its continental shelf in the Arctic.

The cutter will be charged with mapping the ocean floor while the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Louis S St-Laurent will work to determine the thickness of sediment to help calculate the extent of the shelf.

The collaboration would "assist both countries in defining the continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean," the US State Department said in a statement.

Canada has until the end of that year to submit data on the extent of its continental shelf to the United Nations.

The study was announced days after Canadian representatives presented findings from a joint Canadian-Danish survey in the eastern Arctic as part of Ottawa's intent to extend Canada's territory beyond the current 200 nautical miles, adding an additional 676,000 square miles.

The joint research challenges Russian claims to a vast portion of the Arctic by claiming the undersea Lomonosov Ridge is attached to the North American and Greenland plates. Russia has sought to prove the ridge is an extension of its territory.

According to the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, coastal states can claim territory 200 nautical miles from their shoreline and exploit the natural resources within that zone.

Margaret Hays, director of the oceanic affairs office at the US State Department, said the US/Canada mission would explore "places nobody's gone before". She told Reuters the Alaskan continental shelf could lie up to 600 nautical miles from the coastline and that data collected on the mission could provide information to the public about future oil and natural gas sources for the US.

[Pat McCotter]

Arctic Map shows dispute hotspots



Maritime jurisdiction and boundaries in the Arctic region (PDF [1.01MB])

"Its primary purpose is to inform discussions and debates because, frankly, there has been a lot of rubbish about who can claim (sovereignty) over what," explained Martin Pratt, director of the university's International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU).

"To be honest, most of the other maps that I have seen in the media have been very simple," he added.

"We have attempted to show all known claims; agreed boundaries and one thing that has not appeared on any other maps, which is the number of areas that could be claimed by Canada, Denmark and the US."

The team used specialist software to construct the nations' boundaries, and identify what areas could be the source of future disputes.

"All coastal states have rights over the resources up to 200 nautical miles from their coastline," Mr Pratt said. "So, we used specialist geographical software to 'buffer' the claims out accurately."

The researchers also took into account the fact that some nations were able to extend their claims to 350 nautical miles as a result of their landmasses extending into the sea.

Back on the agenda

The issue of defining national boundaries in the Arctic was brought into sharp relief last summer when a team of Russian explorers used their submarine to plant their country's flag on the seabed at the North Pole.

A number of politicians from the nations with borders within the Arctic, including Canada's foreign minister, saw it as Moscow furthering its claim to territory within the region.

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Aerial views of the Arctic

Mr Pratt said a number of factors were driving territorial claims back on to the political agenda.

"Energy security is driving interest, as is the fact that Arctic ice is melting more and more during the summer," he told BBC News. "This is allowing greater exploration of the Arctic seabed."

Data released by the US Geological Survey last month showed that the frozen region contained an estimated 90 billion barrels of untapped oil.

Mr Pratt added that the nations surrounding the Arctic also only had a limited amount of time to outline their claims.

"If they don't define it within the timeframe set out by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, then it becomes part of what is known as 'The Area', which is administered by the International Seabed Authority on behalf of humanity as a whole."

[Free libertarian]

I thought Santa Claus owned the North Pole?

[Raineyrocks]

I thought Santa Claus owned the North Pole?

I guess he got paying his elves under the table and didn't pay some kind of excise tax on the merchandise he was distrubuting.  Also I heard that they opened a Walmart up there and wiped Santa out of business now he's on Prozac in a nursing home. 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings!

[Luke S]

It is all owned by the USA. Every last piece of it. And if any other country tries to "dispute" that, they will have their flag knocked off, and the USA flag will be put there instead. In fact, somebody needs to go up there and knock off that Russian flag and put a USA flag on the north pole.

[John Edward Mercier]

There is no surface land in the artic to put a flag on. If the US wants to claim ownership of the floating ice, I'm sure that the others won't care... they have enough ice of their own.
No country has sovereign rights on deep seabed.

[Pat McCotter]

There is no surface land in the artic to put a flag on. If the US wants to claim ownership of the floating ice, I'm sure that the others won't care... they have enough ice of their own.
No country has sovereign rights on deep seabed.

Correct! The UN does!
International Seabed Authority of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

[Luke S]

There is no surface land in the artic to put a flag on. If the US wants to claim ownership of the floating ice, I'm sure that the others won't care... they have enough ice of their own.
No country has sovereign rights on deep seabed.

Oh yeah, I forgot. There is only sea, no land. Thus because of Freedom of the Seas, nobody owns it. You're right, John.

[Free libertarian]

Santa Claus owns it, he told me.

[Lloyd Danforth]

FL is correct. Mathew Hensen sold it to me in 1972 for a bottle of Boone's Farm and I gave it back to Santa Claus! 

[John Edward Mercier]

The Santa thing is sort of making me laugh. I can't remember which group it is trying to convince everyone the polar bear will go extinct because of melting ice. I can see the next commercial with Santa pulling elves from the ocean warning children they won't get any toys unless they send money.