While no one was paying attention, a Russian ship exploring Antarctica claims it has found oil and gas deposits that are ten times larger than the North Sea. Presumably quite a lot of countries would find this very interesting. At the moment Antarctica is supposedly protected by a piece of paper, but those who want to keep something so valuable to themselves will be needing more than cellulose.
It could take some fossil fuels to protect these fossil fuels
Hard to see any nation keeping control of this oil and gas field using sailing boats, solar powered ships and missiles running on palm oil.
Russia finds vast oil and gas reserves in British Antarctic territory
Johnathon Leake, Telegraph
Russia has found vast oil and gas reserves in the Antarctic, much of it in areas claimed by the UK.
The surveys are a prelude to bringing in drilling rigs to exploit the pristine region for fossil fuels, MPs have warned.
Reserves totalling 511bn barrels of oil – about 10 times the North Sea’s entire 50-year output – have been reported to Moscow by Russian research ships, according to evidence given to the Commons Environment Audit Committee (EAC) last week.
It follows a series of surveys by the Alexander Karpinsky vessel, operated by Rosgeo – the Russian agency charged with finding mineral reserves for commercial exploitation.
The total extracted from the North sea up until 2014 was about 42 billion barrels of “oil equivalent”. Green fanatics would be horrified to think of all the emissions that might be unleashed, but 3 billion cold people in China, Russia, India and Japan might have a different view.
It’s hard to believe no one has staked a claim on Marie Byrd Land. We’re they just too busy to attend the meeting?
Russia claims that its boat was just doing scientific research (just like those Japanese whalers were).
At least a part of the UK government apparently found out about this when a South African newspaper published a story on it. (Who needs intelligence when you can read the Daily Maverick?)
The EAC [Environment Audit Committee] decided to challenge the Foreign Office’s management of the UK’s Antarctic interests following reports in the Daily Maverick, a South African online journal, which discovered Moscow’s activities after its survey ship docked in Cape Town.
The British government has officially said they believe the Russians, but a few in the British government are skeptical. (From the Daily Maverick)
[Anna McMorrin, a Labour MP on the polar audit sub-committee] asked FCDO Under-Secretary David Rutley… if he was “aware” of the Rosgeo vessels, under US sanctions since February, and how the UK was to respond at the annual Antarctic Treaty consultative meeting (ATCM) in India from May 20 to 30.
The under-secretary defended Russia’s “repeated assurances” at ATCMs “that these activities are for scientific purposes”.
A sceptical McMorrin asked Rutley if he was “content to believe Russia when they say they’re just undertaking scientific action”. The Labour MP also quoted expert testimony to the committee, stressing that leading polar geopolitician Professor Klaus Dodds had flagged the “current Russian activity” and its possible “prospecting” links as “troubling”.
“There is a worry that Russia is collecting seismic data that could be construed to be prospecting rather than scientific research. And, if such, does this signal a potential threat to the permanent ban on mining,” asked Dodds, of Royal Holloway, University of London, “with knock-on implications for the integrity of the protocol in its entirety?”
Suddenly people might start paying attention to Antarctica.
hat tip to @TomNelson and @NetZeroWatch
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For the record, the dispute between the UK and Argentina goes back a long way.
Photo: LA(Phot) Ian Simpson of the HMS Portland in South Georgia in 2010 on Wikimedia
