[asa] Riches await as Earth's icy north melts

Moving right along... :) ~ Janice

Riches await as Earth's icy north melts
AP via NOLA ^ | 3/25/2007 | DOUG MELLGREN
Posted on 03/25/2007 1:43:36 AM EDT by thackney
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1806353/posts

Barren and uninhabited, Hans Island is very hard
to find on a map. Yet these days the
Frisbee-shaped rock in the Arctic is much in
demand ­ so much so that Canada and Denmark have
both staked their claim to it with flags and warships.

The reason: an international race for oil, fish,
diamonds and shipping routes, accelerated by the
impact of global warming on Earth's frozen north.

"... some see a lucrative silver lining of riches
waiting to be snatched from the deep, and the
prospect of timesaving sea lanes that could
transform the shipping industry the way the Suez Canal did in the 19th century.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic
has as much as 25 percent of the world's
undiscovered oil and gas. Russia reportedly sees
the potential of minerals in its slice of the
Arctic sector approaching $2 trillion.

All this has pushed governments and businesses
into a scramble for sovereignty over these suddenly priceless seas.

Regardless of climate change, oil and gas
exploration in the Arctic is moving full speed
ahead. State-controlled Norwegian oil company
Statoil ASA plans to start tapping gas from its
offshore Snoehvit field in December, the first in
the Barents Sea. It uses advanced equipment on
the ocean floor, remote-controlled from the
Norwegian oil boom town of Hammerfest through a 90-mile undersea cable.

Alan Murray, an analyst with the consulting firm
Wood Mackenzie, said most petroleum companies are
now focusing research and exploration on the far
north. Russia is developing the vast Shkotman
natural gas field off its Arctic coast, and
Norwegians hope their advanced technology will find a place there.

"Oil will bring a big geopolitical focus. It is a
driving force in the Arctic," said Arvid Jensen,
a consultant in Hammerfest who advises companies
that hope to hitch their economic wagons to the northern rush.

It could open the North Pole region to easy
navigation for five months a year, according to
the latest Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, an
intergovernmental group. That could cut sailing
time from Germany to Alaska by 60 percent, going
through Russia's Arctic instead of the Panama Canal.

Or the Northwest Passage could open through the
channels of Canada's Arctic islands and shorten
the voyage from Europe to the Far East. And
that's where Hans Island, at the entrance to the
Northwest Passage, starts to matter.

The half-square-mile rock, just one-seventh the
size of New York's Central Park, is wedged
between Canada's Ellesmere Island and
Danish-ruled Greenland, and for more than 20
years has been a subject of unusually bitter
exchanges between the two NATO allies.

In 1984, Denmark's minister for Greenland
affairs, Tom Hoeyem, caused a stir when he flew
in on a chartered helicopter, raised a Danish
flag on the island, buried a bottle of brandy at
the base of the flagpole and left a note saying:
"Welcome to the Danish island."

The dispute erupted again two years ago when
Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham set foot on
the rock while Canadian troops hoisted the Maple Leaf flag.

Denmark sent a letter of protest to Ottawa, while
Canadians and Danes took out competing Google
ads, each proclaiming sovereignty over the rock
680 miles south of the North Pole.

Some Canadians even called for a boycott of Danish pastries.

Although both countries have repeatedly sent
warships to the island to make their presence
felt, there's no risk of a shooting war ­ both
sides are resolved to settle the problem
peacefully. But the prospect of a warmer planet
opening up the icy waters has helped push the issue up the agenda.

"We all realize that because of global warming it
will suddenly be an area that will become more
accessible," said Peter Taksoe-Jensen, head of
the Danish Foreign Ministry's legal department.

Shortcuts through Arctic waters are no longer the stuff of science fiction.

In August 2005, the Akademik Fyodorov of Russia
was the first ship to reach the North Pole
without icebreaker help. The Norwegian shipyard
Aker Yards is building innovative vessels that
sail forward in clear waters, and then turn
around to plow with their sterns through heavier ice.

Global warming is also bringing an unexpected
bonus to American transportation company OmniTrax
Inc., which a decade ago bought the small
underutilized Northwest Passage port of
Churchill, Manitoba, for a token fee of 10 Canadian dollars (about $8).

The company, which is private, won't say how much
money it is making in Churchill, but it was
estimated to have moved more than 500,000 tons of
grain through the port in 2007.

Managing director Michael Ogborn said climate
change was not something the company thought about in 1997.

"But over the last 10 years we saw a lengthening
of the season, which appears to be related to
global warming," Ogborn said. "We see the trend continuing."

Just a few years ago, reports said it would take
100 years for the ice to melt, but recent studies
say it could happen in 10-15 years, and the
United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway
have been rushing to stake their claims in the Arctic.

Norway and Russia have issues in the Barents Sea;
the U.S. and Russia in Beaufort Sea; the U.S. and
Canada over rights to the Northwest Passage; and
even Alaska and Canada's Yukon province over their offshore boundary.

Canada, Russia and Denmark are seeking to claim
waters all the way up to the North Pole, saying
the seabed is part of their continental shelf
under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the
Law of the Sea. Norway wants to extend its claims
on the same basis, although not all the way to the pole.

Canada says the Northwest Passage is its
territory, a claim the United States hotly
disputes, insisting the waters are neutral.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has
pledged to put military icebreakers in the frigid
waters "to assert our sovereignty and take action
to protect our territorial integrity."

"...Russia contests Norway's claims to fish-rich
waters around the Arctic Svalbard Islands, and
has even sent warships there to underscore its
discontent with the Norwegian Coast Guard boarding Russian trawlers there.

"Even though they say it is about fish, it is
really about oil," said Jensen, the consultant in Hammerfest.

In 2004, Russian President Vladimir Putin called
the sovereignty issue "a serious, competitive
battle" that "will unfold more and more fiercely." .." ~

Associated Press reporters Beth Duff-Brown in
Toronto, Phil Couvrette in Montreal, Mike Eckel
in Moscow, Dan Joling in Anchorage, Alaska, and
Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Sweden, contributed to
this report. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070324/ap_on_sc/arctic_bonanza

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sun Apr 1 23:02:59 2007