Russia will address the UN on the expansion of its Arctic
shelf next spring. If successful the move would see the country adding an area
of 1.2 million sq. kilometers in the Arctic Ocean, holding 5 billion tons of
standard fuel, to its territory. The Russians now say they possess all the
necessary studies to put an application together and present it to the
Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). For the UN to
recognize Moscow’s ownership of those areas, it must be scientifically proven
that they are a continuation of the continental crust with the same general
geological structure.
The move would permit Russia to increase its potential
hydrocarbon reserves by at least 5 billion tons of standard fuel, Sergey
Donskoy, the country’s natural resources minister, said, adding that “those are
just the most humble assessments, and I’m sure that the actual figure will be a
lot larger.”
Over 60 large hydrocarbon fields have been discovered above
the Arctic Circle, with 43 of them in the Russian sector. The total recoverable resources of Russia’s
part of the Arctic are estimated at 106 billion tons of oil and 69.5 trillion
cubic meters of gas. The discovery of the deposits sparked international
competition over the region’s resources, in which all the Arctic states –
Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the US – are involved. Approximately
30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 15 percent of its oil
lie in the Arctic, with an estimated 84 percent of the Arctic’s 90 billion
barrels of oil and 47.3 trillion cubic meters of gas remaining offshore.
http://rt.com/news/200555-ussia-arctic-shelf-un/
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