Arctic Oil: The Good News and the Bad News

[unhappycamper]

Arctic Oil: The Good News and the Bad News
by Gwynne Dyer
Published on Friday, September 10, 2010 by CommonDreams.org

First, the good news. On 15 September, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre will sign an agreement in Murmansk that resolves the long dispute between the two countries over their Arctic seabed. So there will be no military confrontation in the Barents Sea between Russia and Norway, a NATO member, over who owns which part of the seabed, even if oil is discovered there.

Now for the bad news. On 15 September Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and Norway foreign minister Jonas Gahr Støre will sign an agreement that resolves the long dispute between the two countries over their Arctic seabed rights. That means that drilling for oil can get underway in the Barents Sea, in waters that are deeper than the BP well that blew out in the Gulf of Mexico - colder waters in which an oil spill would linger for many years.

Two years ago, the military and the think tanks in Moscow were obsessed with the prospect of a military confrontation with NATO over Arctic seabed rights. Mention climate change to them, and you would immediately get a lecture about Russia's right to seabed oil and gas in the Barents Sea and American plots to steal those resources.

About 175,000 sq. km. (67,000 sq. mi.) were at stake. Geologists believe that there may be large oil and gas reserves in the area, but there has been no drilling because for forty years the two neighbours were unable to reach a deal on their seabed frontier.

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But the downside of this development is that drilling, long stalled by the geopolitical uncertainties of the region, can now begin. It will take place in an environment where storms are fierce and frequent, and sea-ice is a regular seasonal phenomenon. The polar ice-cap is retreating as global warming proceeds, but there will still be ice in the area in winter for several decades to come.