14 DAY TRIAL // According to geological estimates, between 30 and 35 percent of the world's undiscovered oil deposits are found in the Arctic, alongside 13 percent of the globe's natural gas reserves. With the effects that global warming has on the North Pole, the ice barriers that once made it impossible to even consider setting up exploitations in the region are failing, which means that, pretty soon, we could witness the construction of extraction platforms in areas that were once taboo for the industry. A new research, published recently in the journal Science, managed to finally assess the resources of the Arctic region.
Last year, an investigation by experts at the US Geological Survey (USGS) hinted at the riches that lay underneath the ice sheets, but those numbers were only estimates. The new paper comes with much more accurate data, to amend the Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal. The study is the result of a very detailed geological investigation, conducted by renowned experts worldwide. However, the document does not state whether the resources are recoverable or not, but simply enumerates places and quantities. Independent investigations are required for each of the locations, to determine their full economic potential, the experts say.
In addition, the research does not highlight the potential damage to the environment and wildlife that opening up new drilling platforms in otherwise pristine areas might cause. The numbers only “give us insight into future petroleum resources, political relations, and places that environmental conflicts may occur,” the leader of the new study, Donald Gautier, explains, quoted by Nature News. “The study represents an excellent overall estimate of Arctic resources,” Natural Resources Canada expert Jacob Verhoef adds.
Between 770 and 2,990 trillion cubic feet (22-86 trillion cubic meters) of natural gas may “reside” in the Arctic region, the USGS paper has found. These numbers amount to about 30 percent of the world's yet-undiscovered reserves of natural gas. “The South Kara Sea, Russia, is probably the richest basin in the Arctic, in terms of undiscovered resources,” Gautier tells, adding that the territory, which belongs to the Russian Federation, will probably start being exploited over the next few years.
Additional estimates show that Alaska holds most untapped oil resources, of between 22 to around 256 billion barrels. The reserves are not enough to shift the Middle East's control of global oil supply and demand, but it could give the US and other countries a bit of leverage in future negotiations. “The world's future energy supply will not be determined by Arctic oil. But the future economic prosperity of the Arctic nations will be greatly affected by oil resources,” Gautier explains.
“Conventional oil and gas are just a small part of the Arctic's vast energy resources. These sources [methane, tar sands, oil shales, heavy oil and gas hydrates] were not part of the scope of the study, nor were the Arctic's giant wind, wave, geothermal, hydro-electric and tidal energy potential,” the Chairman of the US Arctic Research Commission, Mead Treadwell, concludes. In other words, the region has a great potential for producing both traditional an renewable forms of energy for decades to come.