Posted on 03/26/2008 5:29:48 PM PDT by BGHater
U.S. firm lays claim to nearly all of what it says will be 400 billion barrels
A U.S.-based company that has controversially laid claim to nearly all of the Arctic Ocean's undersea oil said yesterday that new geological data suggest a "potentially vast" petroleum resource of 400 billion barrels.
That figure is backed by a respected Canadian researcher who recently signed on as the firm's chief scientific adviser.
Las Vegas-based Arctic Oil & Gas has raised eyebrows around the world with its roll-of-the-dice bid to lock up exclusive rights to extract oil and gas from rapidly melting areas of the central Arctic Ocean, currently beyond the territorial control of Canada, Russia and other polar nations.
The company, which counts retired B.C. senator Edward Lawson among its directors, has filed a claim with the United Nations to act as the sole "development agent" of Arctic seabed oil and gas.
The firm acknowledges that the Arctic's petroleum deposits are the "common heritage of mankind," but has argued that the polar region requires a private "lead manager" to organize a multinational consortium of oil companies to extract undersea resources responsibly and equitably.
The Canadian government has dismissed the company's "alleged claim" over Arctic oil as having "no force in law," but experts in polar issues have raised alarms about the firm's actions, saying they could disrupt efforts to create an orderly regime for exploiting resources and protecting the Arctic environment under international law rather than a marketplace model.
In its latest statement about the polar seabed's "enormous reserve potential" for petroleum deposits, Arctic Oil & Gas cites recent scientific evidence that huge, floating mats of azolla -- a prehistoric fern believed to have covered much of the Arctic Ocean during a planetary hothouse era about 55 million years ago -- decomposed soon after the age of the dinosaurs and exist today as "vast hydrocarbon resources" trapped in layers of rock below the polar ice cap.
Jonathan Bujak, a former geoscientist with the Geological Survey of Canada who now works as a private consultant in Canada and Britain, is described in the Arctic Oil & Gas statement as confirming the "highly probable validity" of recent research pointing to rock layers "extremely rich" in "hydrocarbon precursors" throughout the Arctic basin.
Mr. Bujak, who previously worked for PetroCanada as a petroleum geologist, co-authored a landmark 2006 study in the journal Nature that first detailed the ancient azolla explosion that shows up today in Arctic seabed core samples.
Neither Mr. Bujak nor Mr. Lawson could be reached for comment yesterday.
Scientists have predicted that global warming could leave the entire Arctic virtually ice-free for months at a time within 20 years. That prospect has hastened a scramble among nations with a polar coast -- namely Canada, Russia, the U.S., Norway and Denmark, which controls Greenland -- to try to strengthen their scientific claims under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to extended territorial sovereignty over the Arctic Ocean floor.
A report issued last week by the European Union's top two foreign policy officials also highlighted the looming international struggle over Arctic oil deposits.
Authored by Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Europe's commissioner for external relations, the study pointed to "potential consequences for international stability and European security interests" as the retreat of Arctic ice makes shipping and oil and gas exploration a reality in the region.
Noting the "rapid melting of the polar ice caps," the report noted that "the increased accessibility of the enormous hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic region is changing the geo-strategic dynamics of the region."
One Question:
When are they going to start drilling and delivering to a gas station near me?
I sense an IPO and go pattern being run.
bump
‘Las Vegas-based Arctic Oil & Gas’
Aka, Nigerian Arctic Pump and Dump.
The Nautilus was there first!
For those who need a translator, what this really says is that enviro wackos have are worried that they won't be able to prevent any drilling in the arctic under any circumstances.
The ice-frozen North Pole is currently a no man's land supervised by a U.N. Commission. The five Polar countries — Russia, the U.S., Canada, Norway and Denmark — each control only a 200-mile economic zone along their coasts.
And none of these economic zones reach the North Pole. Under the current U.N. Maritime convention, one country's zone can be extended only if it can prove that the continental shelf into which it wishes to expand is a natural extension of its own territory, by showing that it shares a similar geological structure.
I stopped reading after “rapidly melting areas of the central Arctic Ocean.”
Also Russia's claim was based on the ridge being part of their shelf, while this private sector company is seeking the seabed.
This US private sector group cannot make claims on the seabed unless the US signs the treaty
I’d rather have Tony’s crew running it than the UN. The street tax would be a LOT less.
We’d better get the Burns Slant Drilling Co. on retainer PDQ.
Pump the middle east dry. Then sell them our oil for 1,000 dollars a barrel.
They'll be rapidly freezing areas in about 6 months.
“Can we tell Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela to go shove it now?”
For sure! Add that 400 billion barrels to the 500 in the Bakken Formation and the World will be back to kissing our arses for a change. But we need at least seven new refineries before we can get too cocky with them I fear.
i’m selling plots on the moon. i’ve gotten the okay from the un so the moon is legally mine.
Good. I hope we don’t sign on. It sure says something about this corporation that they would go straight to the U.N. to make the claim. Evidently they recognize it’s self-proclaimed authority on everything.
Any Polar Bears out there.?
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