On July 28 2007 all over the world on television,
Arthur Chilingarov could be seen holding a photograph of a Russian flag
which was placed on the sea floor under the North Pole. This incident
awakened the world and drew attention to the North Pole region and the
resources expected to be found there.
According to the models and to most recent observations the melting
of sea-ice is accelerating. The expectations are that the Arctic
Ocean will
be free of ice in the summer before 2020. This means that the Arctic
Ocean will become open for the exploitation of natural resources
and for new,
shorter shipping routes.
However, exploratory deep sea drilling is expensive and large investments
will be needed. With the current global financial crisis and the low
world market prices for crude oil, investments in prospect drilling in
the Arctic
Ocean are not very likely in the near future. The expectations are that
the coastal states will concentrate on oil and gas production within
their exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Secondly the technology with sub-sea stopcocks (Snøhvit) is not
yet fully developed. Especially the technology necessary for complicated
humid, high pressure gas fields such as the Shtockman field in the Barents
Sea is still insufficient. More time is needed to develop this kind of
technology.
However, ice strength ships will soon sail the Northwest, the Northeast
Passage and the Artic Ocean via the Trans Polar Marine route in the
summer months. These Arctic Ocean Marine Routes are much shorter
than the usual
routes. Ice strength ships are developed with special propellers
(asipots) and the Arctic Ocean will become an ocean just like the
other oceans
in the world. Bulk carriers and LNG tankers will use these shipping
routes because of the presence of minerals, coal, oil and gas fields
along the
way. Local sailing routes especially will be developed in the shelf
seas with oil and gas fields: the Beaufort and the Barents Sea. The
distance
between these oil and gas producing regions and large oil terminals
like Rotterdam will be much smaller.
The UNCLOS convention provides only a framework and not an operational
regulatory regime. There is no requirement for an ecosystem-based
ocean management and there is no regime for environmental impact
assessments.
There is no representative network of protected marine areas in
the Arctic Ocean and there is no regulatory mechanism governing defaults
for all
kinds of maritime activities
In my opinion at the moment there is no International Organization
strong enough to regulate the emerging and new maritime activities
and the long-term
exploitation of natural resources. The world financial crisis
will provide more time to set up an Arctic Ocean Treaty System that
can create a management
plan for the Arctic Ocean ecosystem.
Since the European Union has a strong interest in future transport
developments in the Arctic and in the future developments in
gas production, the EU
should contribute to the establishment of such an Arctic Ocean
Treaty System and play a broker’s role through its northern member countries (Denmark,
Sweden and Finland).
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