Russia's Newest Oil Grab in the Great White North?
No, it's not Canada...at least not yet anyway.
As the price of oil skyrocketed to new record highs near US$80 a barrel last week (before a steep reversal in price), I was quite amused to read in the Financial Times that the Russian Bear is up to its old tricks; and is trying to gobble-up more energy resources, in a new location this time... north of the Arctic Circle .
It seems the area in dispute is a geological formation called the Lomonosov Ridge, which is located just 4,000 or so meters beneath the surface of the polar ice cap. But thanks to global warming, the oil and gas reserves in this region may be accessible after all, although still not easily - or cost effectively.
But that hasn't stopped intrepid Russian polar explorers from attempting to stake their claim to the North Pole.
In fact, while investors watched oil and stock prices gyrate wildly last week - the Akademik Fyodorov research vessel, accompanied by Russian icebreakers arrived on station at the Pole, from its home port of Murmansk.
The plan is for this expedition to gather evidence - any evidence - that helps back up Russian claims that the disputed undersea mountain range is somehow connected to Russian territory. Assuming they find such evidence, it would give them a perfect right to drill for oil there.
Nevermind the fact that Greenland is hundreds of miles closer to the disputed area than Russia, or that the UN rejected a Russian claim to this area already, back in 2002.
And the Kremlin must be deeply-discounting the fact that established international treaties clearly limit a nation's sovereignty to a 200-mile wide "economic zone" around its coastline. In this case, the nearest landmass is more than 400 miles away from this patch of ocean floor. And yet, the Russian oil expedition presses on.
According to the article, "BP has formed an alliance with Rosneft, Russia's state oil company, to bid jointly for Arctic exploration acreage."
Won't they ever learn?
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