Russia's Claim to Vast Underwater Oil and Gas

Russia's Claim to Vast Underwater Oil and Gas



Aug. 2007  – In an expedition reminiscent of 
the last century's race to the North Pole, a Russian expedition today laid 
a territorial claim to the vast underwater oil and gas fields along the 
Arctic's Lomonosov Ridge. 
Two Russian mini-submarines made "a plunge into the abyss" beneath the 
pole and returned from a depth of over 4,000 meters with samples of water 
and ocean floor, according to the government owned Russian news agency 
ITAR-Tass. 
In addition to planting a rust-proof titanium metal Russian flag and 
leaving a time capsule message, the subs collected specimens of Arctic 
flora and fauna and videotaped their dives.

Russia says it has strong scientific grounds to support the theory that 
the Lomonosov Ridge, extending from the New Siberian Islands in the 
eastern Laptev Sea towards the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, is a submerged 
geological extension of the Siberian platform and, therefore, is part of 
the Russian continental shelf. 
On Wednesday, the convoy, comprised of the Russian nuclear ice-breaker 
Rossiya and the Russian research vessel Akademik Fyodorov, approached the 
North Pole, and members of an advance party flew by helicopter to the 
pole, scouting the ice breaker's route. 
The mission is expected to set up atmospheric measurement posts in the 
Arctic to gauge the effects of global warming – a phenomenon that Russian 
officialdom is ambivalent about combating, even though it is a signatory 
of the Kyoto Protocol. 
Many economic and trade circles in Moscow see global warming not as a 
threat but a welcome boon to open Arctic Sea shipping and more use of 
Russia's northern ice-bound ports. 
The symbolic Arctic mission, along with geologic data being gathered by 
expedition scientists, is intended to prop up Moscow's claims to more than 
460,000 square miles of the Arctic shelf - which by some estimates may 
contain 10 billion tons of oil and gas deposits. 
Mission to lay claim to underwater regions 
The voyage, led by noted polar explorer and Russian legislator Artur 
Chilingarov, is part of the Kremlin's effort to buttress its claims under 
international agreements to a large portion of the northern polar region.

The scouting of hard to reach Arctic oil and gas deposits has been an 
obsession of the Kremlin for the past two years. The Shtokman field, off 
the north coast of Russia and Norway has been a site of special interest 
and controversy. 
While Russia has a territorial claim to that area, and many other hard to 
explore Arctic sites, it does not have the technical savvy to actually 
work these fields. 
The Russians have, therefore, attracted the participation of international 
oil companies, such as British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell and Norwegian 
giant Statoil to supply sophisticated equipment in exchange for drilling 
rights. 
But Russia has proven to be a fickle partner in these ventures, as shown 
by the Royal Dutch Shell fiasco last year. The company had been promised 
almost unlimited drilling rights in the far east Russian region of 
Sakhalin. As the project neared success, however, Moscow found Royal Dutch 
Shell in violation of a little observed environmental law. 
The end result was that Royal Dutch Shell - which had done all of the 
preliminary speculation and brought in all of the sophisticated equipment 
necessary to work the ice-bound field – was forced to capitulate to 
Russia's insistence that the oil giant cede all but 30 percent of its 
drilling rights to Russia. 
The move gave many international oil giants pause, and as evidenced by the 
current and unprecedented expedition, Moscow is now going it alone to 
reveal the theoretical riches of the Arctic oil fields. 

While the Kremlin has stressed the current expedition has scientific aims, 
its main intention is to help expand both Russia's energy reserves and its 
global political clout. 
"There's no question that this particular expedition does have some kind 
of larger political and economic focus," said Rose Gottemoeller, director 
of the Moscow Carnegie Center. 
The expedition reflects an intense rivalry between Russia, the United 
States, Canada and other nations whose shores face the northern polar 
ocean for the Arctic's icebound riches. 
About 100 scientists aboard the Akademik Fyodorov are looking for evidence 
that the Lomonosov Ridge - a 1,995 kilometer underwater mountain range 
that crosses the polar region - is a geologic extension of Russia, and 
therefore can be claimed by Russia under the UN Convention on the Law of 
the Sea. 
Denmark hopes to prove that the Lomonosov Ridge is an extension of the 
Danish territory of Greenland, not Russia. Canada, meanwhile, plans to 
spend $7 billion to build and operate up to eight Arctic patrol ships in a 
bid to help protect its sovereignty. 
The U.S. Congress is considering an $8.7 billion budget reauthorization 
bill for the U.S. Coast Guard that includes $100 million to operate and 
maintain the nation's three existing polar icebreakers, AP reported. The 
bill also authorizes the Coast Guard to construct two new vessels. 

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