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 Russian Bear dominates the Arctic

To continue its dominance on the Arctic, the Russian Bear needs the help of foreign markets, investors and technologies.

Michael Byers, Al Jazeera.com, 3 January 2011

Vancouver, Canada - In the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October, Marko Ramius, the rogue captain of a Soviet nuclear missile submarine, evades the US and Soviet navies by maneuvering deftly through a narrow and winding - but precisely charted - mid-Atlantic trench.

In real life, the Soviet navy's charting efforts extended to the heart of the NATO-controlled Canadian Arctic. Soviet-era charts on board the Akademik Ioffe, an ice-strengthened ship owned by the Russian Academy of Sciences and chartered by a Canadian eco-cruise company, show many more depth soundings in the Northwest Passage than do comparable Canadian charts.

For the full text, see: Russian Bear

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

Russia’s Norilsk Plans to Invest $370 Million to Double Arctic Shipments

Ilya Khrennikov, Bloomberg, June 28, 2011

OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, the largest Russian mining company, plans to spend $370 million to double its shipments across the Arctic Ocean by 2016 as global warming allows the route to rival the journey through the Suez Canal.

Koreans Eye Mackenzie Valley Gas

Short on fuels, their LNG tankers are ready to fetch BC gas. Will they spark a latent NWT gas boom, too?

Liquified natural gas carrier: Korea planning icebreaking tankers.

Michael Byers, The Tyee, June 27, 2011

Among the denim-clad crowd at the Inuvik Petroleum Show, two well-dressed Koreans stand out like sore thumbs. Curious, I sit down with them at lunch.

"We're from Kogas," they say. "The Korea Gas Corporation." Why have they come here, to the Northwest Territories?

Danish warship sails into Greenpeace Arctic oil protest

Armed forces called in to prevent environmentalists interfering with Cairn Energy's exploration of Arctic waters

John Vidal, The Guardian, May 24, 2011

Armed Danish commandos are thought to have been landed on a giant oil rig by helicopter to prevent environmentalists interfering with a British oil company's controversial exploration of deep Arctic waters. In a stand-off in the Davis Strait, west of Greenland, the Danish navy has been shadowing the Greenpeace ship Esperanza as it tracked the 53,000 tonne Leiv Eiriksson in iceberg-strewn sea to the site where it plans to search for oil at depths of up to 5,000ft.

Expedition could solidify Canada's Arctic claims

Randy Boswell, PostMedia, May 31, 2011

A High Arctic mapping expedition this summer along a mysterious undersea mountain chain near the North Pole will mark the culmination of a 10-year federal research project aimed at adding millions of square kilometres of ocean floor -potentially an area as large as Canada's three Prairie provinces combined -to this country's territorial possessions.

Russia's Arctic Opening

As Moscow prepares to open the icy waters of the Arctic to offshore drilling, dangers abound. But it's also a moment of opportunity to get things right.

CHARLES EMMERSON, FOREIGN POLICY, MARCH 30, 2011

When it comes to Russian oil and gas, major deals with foreign companies are a good deal like London buses: Just when you're about to give up waiting for one to come along, three or four turn up at once.

Already, 2011 has been a bumper year.

The Inuit prepare to defend their rights

The Economist, March 3, 2011

Ottawa - WHEN in the Arctic, you should at least treat your host well. Royal Dutch Shell, an oil giant, had to learn this the hard way when planning to drill exploration wells in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska a couple of years ago. The firm had spent $84m on offshore leases and had satisfied regulators. But it failed to win over the Inupiat, an Inuit group. They worried that icebreakers and drill ships would hurt the bowhead whales on which they depend. Their leaders and environmental groups sued American regulators for not following a 1970 law on environmental impacts. This allowed them to wrest a number of concessions from Shell, including a commitment to stop all offshore operations during the bowhead migration and hunt, should drilling ever proceed.