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| Chinese Arctic Station |
The decision to grant
permanent observer status to China and five other nations by the Arctic Council
meeting in Sweden Wednesday reflects the heightened interest by some of the
world's most powerful economies in an area rich in oil, gas, minerals, fish and
new transport possibilities.
Five years ago, the
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) described the vast Arctic continental shelf as
potentially said the "largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum
remaining on Earth."
A new U.S. Arctic
policy unveiled by the Obama administration last week cites that 2008 study,
which estimated that about 13% of the world's undiscovered oil and 30% of its
undiscovered gas lies north of the Arctic Circle.
There are deposits of uranium and coal scattered through out the area north of the Arctic Circle, the main energy resources of interest for commercial operators are oil and gas.
The estimated amount of undiscovered gas is more significant approximately
may be three-times as much as the estimated oil on an energy-equivalent basis.
China's
dependence on oil and gas shipped from the Middle East, which must pass through
the Southeast Asian chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca also be
lessened.
The main
transportation focus is the NSR, which runs along the northern coastline of
Siberia from Novaya Zemlya for China.
It is also important that the USGS study excluded conventional oil
deposits smaller than 50 million barrels and conventional gas deposits smaller
than 300 billion cubic feet.
It also excluded non-conventional hydrocarbons such as oil,
heavy oil, tar sands, coal bed methane, and gas hydrates.
Gas hydrates prove particularly useful in the future since it is
estimated that there may be 6-600 times more gas hydrates than conventional
gas globally.