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Facing the challenges of changing Arctic Ulmer reviews new opportunities and the issues they raise as sea ice shrinks and commercial activity grows in the far north Alan Bailey Petroleum News
In an era of rapid change in the Arctic, with the impacts of global warming gripping the region, there are both new opportunities and new challenges as global interest in the far north increases, Fran Ulmer, chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, told the International Association for Energy Economics’ North American conference in Anchorage, Alaska, on July 29.
“The Arctic is a vast, vulnerable and valuable space that is incredibly challenging and is experiencing such a stunning rate of change that almost anything that we say about it today will be out of date shortly,” Ulmer said.
A key component of change in the Arctic is the loss of sea-ice cover, with the ice cover shrinking and thinning to the point where the total ice volume has dropped by 75 percent, she said.
“Things are changing in some pretty dramatic ways,” Ulmer said. “Warming that has occurred in the Arctic has happened faster than in any other region in this planet.”
Opportunities The retreat of the ice coupled with a high demand for resources is creating new development opportunities in the north — the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that as much as 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil exist in the Arctic, Ulmer said. Much of the oil and gas lies offshore and 60 percent of the resources are likely to exist in Russian territory, she said.
Cruise ship activity in the Arctic has been growing, fisheries have been expanding and vessel traffic on Russia’s northern sea route between Europe and East Asia has quadrupled within a year, she said.
But the Arctic is a difficult region in which to operate.
“It’s cold. It’s dark. It has extreme storms. It is distant and remote. It has very little infrastructure,” Ulmer said.
These factors drive a need for specialized equipment and training, and a willingness to spend the necessary money to prepare for the unique Arctic challenges, she said.
Arctic people And the Arctic, an ocean surrounded by eight Arctic nations, is a region of people.
“There are four million people who call the Arctic home,” Ulmer said, commenting that it is essential to recognize the social and human implications of regional change.
The Inupiat people in Alaska, for example, have relied for centuries on Arctic marine mammals, fish and birds for food, with the wildlife also being part of the indigenous culture, she said.
Of particular concern to Arctic people is the possibility of an offshore oil spill, either from a shipping accident or from an accident involving oil and gas activities. The U.S. Arctic Research Commission has published a report on research into Arctic offshore oil spill response techniques; the National Research Council is conducting a study on the same topic; and the oil industry is very active in finding ways to adapt spill response technologies for Arctic use, Ulmer said.
In terms of general Arctic scientific research, the U.S. Arctic Research Commission advises the president, federal agencies and Congress on research policies while also providing the public with research-related information. The organization is developing an Internet portal as a one-stop shop to websites relating to that research, Ulmer said.
International interest There is huge international interest in the changing Arctic, with a wide variety of countries — Italy, Singapore, Korea, China, Japan — all requesting involvement in the Arctic Council, the formal body that provides a forum for the eight Arctic nations to meet, conduct environmental research and agree on areas of collaboration. The Arctic Council has formed international agreements for Arctic search and rescue protocols and for preventing and responding to Arctic marine oil spills. Another organization, the International Maritime Organization, is working on a polar code that would be mandatory for vessels operating in the Arctic, thus increasing Arctic shipping safety.
The eight Arctic nations themselves have been conducting the science necessary to make territorial claims over the extended continental shelf areas of the Arctic Ocean. But the United States is the only Arctic nation that has yet to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the international treaty that sets the rules for the use of international waters and under which nations can make extended continental shelf claims, Ulmer said. More than 160 nations worldwide have ratified the convention, she said.
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