Who Owns the Arctic?

Canada's oil-sands bonanza could mean disaster for Alaska's coastline

Canada's disregard for the impacts of selling oil sands to China will lead to the near-inevitability of another Exxon Valdez-type spill in U.S. waters

Michael Byers, Special to the Seattle Times, May 18, 2012

Twenty-three years after the Exxon Valdez spilled more than half a million barrels of oil into Prince William Sound, another threat looms over Alaska's remote and beautiful coastline — in the form of heavy oil exports from Canada to China.

The dragon looks north

China grows hungry for Arctic resources and shipping routes as northern ice melts.

China has already invested $25bn to build an oil pipeline from Sibera [EPA] Michael Byers, AlJazeera.com, December 28, 2011

Vancouver, Canada - As the Arctic sea-ice melts, the Dragon looks to the north. China has a voracious appetite for oil, natural gas and minerals - of which the Arctic has plenty. The world's newest superpower is also the world's largest shipping nation, and well positioned to take advantage of shorter routes across an increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean.

There is no unclaimed land available in the Arctic, because Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States carved up the region centuries ago. But this fact doesn't discourage a resource-hungry China, which knows it can buy the access it needs.

Chinese state-owned companies have already invested tens of billions of dollars in Canada's northern tar sands. Three years ago, the Chinese government lent a Russian company $25bn so that it could build an oil pipeline from Siberia to China, which now carries 300,000 barrels per day. ...

For the full text, see: The dragon looks north 

Melting Arctic brings new opportunities

Changing conditions in the far north have sparked excitement and unfounded concerns over potential conflict.

Michael Byers, Al Jazeera.com , December 22, 2011

Vancouver, Canada - "For the first time in my life, I'm trying to find ice."

Alex MacIntyre was standing on the bridge of the Akademik Ioffe as the Russian-flagged ice-strengthened cruise ship traversed the Northwest Passage last summer. A Canadian ice-pilot with four decades of Arctic experience, MacIntyre remembers when the route was choked with sea-ice that was 10 to 15 metres thick.

Twenty-two ships sailed through the Northwest Passage in 2011. On the other side of the Arctic Ocean, 34 ships traversed Russia's Northern Sea Route.

The Arctic Ocean, which exists in a precarious balance between ice and water, is more susceptible to climate change than anywhere else on Earth. A so-called "feedback loop" exacerbates the situation: As climate change warms the air and melts the highly reflective ice from above, it exposes more dark ocean water which acts like a solar sponge, absorbing more energy from the sun and melting the remaining ice from below.

For the full text, see: Melting Arctic brings new opportunities

Asian juggernaut eyes our ‘golden’ waterways

Michael Byers, Globe and Mail, 29 August 2011

“We are men of action. We get things done.” With those words, Ahmed Ali Al-Subaey, the Saudi-born CEO of South Korea’s largest oil company, set the tone for a conference on Arctic shipping held, significantly, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Most of the world’s cargo ships traverse the Pacific as they service the economic powerhouses of Asia. Fully 77 per cent of China’s oil imports pass through the Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia. In Beijing, this strategic weakness is referred to as the “Malacca dilemma.”

Some of the larger vessels can’t fit into the Panama Canal and must loop around the bottom of South America. Still more loop around Africa to avoid the pirate-infested approaches to the Suez Canal. The added distances impose unwelcome costs – in fuel, salaries and foregone business.

Now, all eyes are turning toward another entrance to the Pacific: the relatively deep, wide, pirate-free Bering Strait. To the east, the Northwest Passage offers a 7,000-kilometre shortcut between Northeast Asia and the Atlantic seaboard of the United States. To the west, the Northern Sea Route offers a 10,000-kilometre shortcut to Europe.

China is coming to the Arctic

Michael Byers, Ottawa Citizen, March 29, 2010

Foreign ministers from Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark and Norway are meeting in Chelsea, Quebec, today -- with the Arctic on the agenda, and China on their minds.

As the Arctic sea-ice melts, the world is looking northward.

China has no Arctic territory, but it does have a voracious appetite for oil and natural gas. It is also the world's largest shipping nation, eager for shorter routes and greater efficiencies.

Earlier this month, a Chinese rear-admiral asserted that the Arctic belongs to all peoples. He was correct -- if only with respect to the central Arctic Ocean where the water and sea-ice form part of the high seas and an area of ocean floor beyond the continental shelves of the five coastal states is part of the "common heritage of mankind."

Still, the admiral's statement raised a question that has been on many minds but far too few lips: What are China's interests in the Arctic?