Arctic-Seabed Oil Claims May Quicken Under New Senate

[ben_meyers]

Source: Bloomberg News

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic party gains in the U.S. Senate may speed approval of a maritime treaty that allows signatories to stake claims to Arctic seabed containing oil and gas deposits.

With President-elect Barack Obama supporting ratification of the Law of the Sea and Democrats unseating seven Republican senators in this month's elections, the U.S. moved a step closer to joining 157 nations including Russia that have endorsed the treaty, political analysts including the Century Foundation's Jeff Laurenti said.

The Senate, which must ratify any international treaty, ``is where the roadblock has been in the last couple of years when even President Bush was repeatedly expressing strong support'' for ratification, Laurenti, foreign policy program director at the New York-based policy-research group, said in an interview yesterday.

A rush to explore the Arctic was triggered by the region's melting ice. That has opened more access to areas holding about 22 percent of the world's untapped oil and natural gas, including deposits off Alaska, according to U.S. Geological Survey estimates. Russia, a signatory in 1997, already has used the treaty's legal authority to assert its rights to mineral riches on its continental shelf in the Arctic.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=axGnGj6oDSqY&refer=home

---

Well isn't this special, I may be able to dust off the Hummer after all, what peak oil?

[ohio2007]

1. Canada objects to Russian claims under the arctic ice

A New Cold Conflict: Arctic Claim Disputes



http://www.foreignpolicydigest.org/2008060559/January/February-2008/Archive/new-cold-conflict.html
luckily, oil is under $50 bbl again. The region will prove to expensive to exploit for a very long time.

[4dsc]

2. Peak oil is still alive and well

Oil is still a finite resource and just because demand as caused prices to drop doesn't mean oil fields have stopped depleting.. American's like to think in the short term and peak oil is a long term problem..