Restoration of U.S. icebreaker should propel Canada to Arctic action: Senator

(Randy Boswell/Canwest News Service via The Gazette, 11 March 2010) -- A day after the U.S. Coast Guard's top commander declared the Arctic a region of "extreme focus" for the U.S. — by announcing plans to bolster the American icebreaker fleet by bringing an aging icebreaker out of retirement — a Liberal senator and a leading Arctic expert are calling for stronger commitments from the Canadian government to project this country's presence in the polar realm. William Rompkey, the Liberal senator who recently headed a probe of the Canadian Coast Guard's capabilities in the Arctic, said the U.S. government's $62 million plan to reactivate the 34-year-old, 130-metre Polar Star is a further sign of the growing sense of urgency in the region — and of Canada's need to build, refurbish or even lease more ships quickly, or face "chaos" in the Northwest Passage. "If we're saying this is our territory, we've got to be there," Rompkey, chair of the Senate fisheries committee, told Canwest News Service on Thursday. "Or we've got to stop saying it's our territory." University of Calgary political scientist Rob Huebert agreed that Canada could learn a lesson from the U.S. despite that country's own slow recognition of the growing strategic significance of the Arctic Ocean. "The Americans had let the Polar Star languish," he said, but then "all of a sudden they realize the Arctic is important and boom — things start to happen. " Huebert and Rompkey, a Newfoundland senator, were responding to Wednesday's announcement by U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen that the growing need to assert American jurisdiction and perform other duties in waters north of Alaska has prompted a planned 30-month restoration of the aging Polar Star, one of the country's three icebreakers capable of extended voyages through the Arctic Ocean.

# - Amanda Graham - 15 March 2010; 2:23:24 PM

Restoration of U.S. icebreaker should propel Canada to Arctic action: Senator

(Randy Boswell/Canwest News Service, 11 March 2010) -- A day after the U.S. Coast Guard's top commander declared the Arctic a region of "extreme focus" for the U.S. — by announcing plans to bolster the American icebreaker fleet by bringing an aging icebreaker out of retirement — a Liberal senator and a leading Arctic expert are calling for stronger commitments from the Canadian government to project this country's presence in the polar realm. William Rompkey, the Liberal senator who recently headed a probe of the Canadian Coast Guard's capabilities in the Arctic, said the U.S. government's $62 million plan to reactivate the 34-year-old, 130-metre Polar Star is a further sign of the growing sense of urgency in the region — and of Canada's need to build, refurbish or even lease more ships quickly, or face "chaos" in the Northwest Passage. "If we're saying this is our territory, we've got to be there," Rompkey, chair of the Senate fisheries committee, told Canwest News Service on Thursday. "Or we've got to stop saying it's our territory." University of Calgary political scientist Rob Huebert agreed that Canada could learn a lesson from the U.S. despite that country's own slow recognition of the growing strategic significance of the Arctic Ocean. "The Americans had let the Polar Star languish," he said, but then "all of a sudden they realize the Arctic is important and boom — things start to happen. " Huebert and Rompkey, a Newfoundland senator, were responding to Wednesday's announcement by U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen that the growing need to assert American jurisdiction and perform other duties in waters north of Alaska has prompted a planned 30-month restoration of the aging Polar Star, one of the country's three icebreakers capable of extended voyages through the Arctic Ocean.

# - Amanda Graham - 14 March 2010; 12:22:13 PM

Canada to map central Arctic seabed

(CBC News, 9 March 2010) -- Federal scientists are set to map the ocean seabed in the central Arctic this month, as Canada continues to gather data to help claim more Arctic territory under an international treaty. The Canadian government has until 2013 to submit a claim, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to extend its sovereignty beyond the usual 200 nautical-mile limit currently recognized in international law. In order to make that claim, Canada has to prove that the Arctic seabed is an extension of the continental shelf.

"What we're trying to do is cover the entire Arctic margin from, let's say, north of Greenland to almost the Alaska boundary," Dr. Jacob Verhoef, the scientific director of Canada's mapping efforts, told CBC News. After spending the last four years mapping the seabed in the eastern Arctic, scientists are moving west this month, setting their sights on an area off Borden Island in the central High Arctic. The survey will likely run from mid-March to early May, depending on weather conditions, Verhoef said.

# - Amanda Graham - 11 March 2010; 2:29:56 PM

Canada, U.S. switch positions in Beaufort Sea boundary dispute

(Randy Boswell/Canwest News Service, 8 March 2010)** -- Just days after the Conservative government's throne speech pledged to resolve several outstanding Arctic territorial disputes, polar experts have revealed an unexpected twist in the long-running disagreement over the Canada-U.S. border in the southern Beaufort Sea. For decades, the two countries have been deadlocked over where to draw the maritime boundary off the coasts of Alaska and the Yukon — a conflict that has flared occasionally when it came to fisheries management and oil-and-gas exploration. The dispute has created a wedge-shaped, Lake Ontario-sized section of the Arctic Ocean that both countries claim is theirs. Canada's position is based on a 19th-century treaty that extends the Yukon-Alaska land boundary out to sea, and the U.S. position is derived from an "equidistance" principle based on the shape of the adjacent American and Canadian coastlines.

But at a weekend conference in Anchorage, Alaska, where U.S. and Canadian experts in Arctic sovereignty and international law met to discuss the long-simmering dispute, they emerged with a fresh understanding of the boundary battle that turns the whole business upside down. They concluded that as the two countries pursue new seabed claims under a UN treaty beyond the disputed area — in the central and northern parts of the Beaufort Sea — the U.S. would actually benefit from Canada's interpretation of the offshore boundary, and Canada would gain a greater share of undersea territory using the American approach. The reason, says University of British Columbia professor Michael Byers, is that the farther north the disputed boundary runs, the more Canada's Banks Island comes into play under the U.S. formula for drawing the demarcation line.

Until recently, the focus of the dispute was on potential oil and gas resources in the southern wedge of overlapping ocean, which covers about 21,500 square kilometres. According to the U.S. position, Alaska's northward-sloping coastline means the sea's southern maritime boundary veers slightly eastward of the Yukon-Alaska land boundary, giving the U.S. a greater amount of marine jurisdiction. But the overlap in the northerly expanse of the Beaufort would be much larger — and reversed, with the boundary under the U.S. formula swinging far to the west because of Banks Island, giving Canada a greater share of the potentially oil-rich seabed. "The curiosity of this is that, in terms of sheer amount of seabed, the U.S. position ends up being better for Canada, and the Canadian position ends up being better for the United States," says Byers, who helped organize the weekend workshop with leading scholars on Arctic issues and maritime law. ...

# - Amanda Graham - 10 March 2010; 5:39:48 PM

Canada urged to seek nuclear-free Arctic zone

(Juliet O'Neill/Canwest News Service via The Gazette, 10 March 2010) — Calling for the creation of a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Arctic is not alarmist, says an academic report as foreign ministers of the world's Arctic nations prepare for a summit in Canada later this month. While the threat of nuclear-weapon use in the Arctic may be nebulous now, the ground should be prepared for potential future confrontations over competing claims for sovereignty, power and resources in the region, say co-authors Michael Wallace and Steven Staples. They also say the move would be a prudent step to safeguard the Arctic environment against nuclear accidents.

"By acting now we can probably save ourselves a lot of angst down the road," Staples said in an interview Tuesday. "As countries try to stake their claims in the Arctic and on the resources, let's do this in a blueprint way — in a co-ordinated way — and avoid a mad scramble that could lead to an accident." Wallace, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, and Steven Staples, president of the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute, are executive members of the Canadian Pugwash Group — a think-tank dedicated to the prevention and resolution of armed conflict.

The authors endorse a piecemeal approach that would start with a unilateral declaration by Canada that the Northwest Passage is a nuclear-weapons-free zone, which could be expanded as others are invited to join. However, while Canada claims sovereignty over the Northwest Passage, the United States asserts the body is international waters. ... Another major obstacle is the core military doctrine of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which counts the potential use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent that is essential to preserve peace.

See the report here.

# - Amanda Graham - 10 March 2010; 5:37:47 PM

Russians, Chinese eye new Arctic oil route

(Eric Watkins/Oil Diplomacy, Oil and Gas Journal, 4 March 2010)** -- LOS ANGELES - Russia’s Sovcomflot oil line will undertake a trial shipment of oil to Japan this summer, reported to be the first shipment ever to sail the entire Northern Sea Route from northwest Russia to Asia. The decision by Sovcomflot follows earlier plans by China and Russia to begin shipping oil through the Arctic Circle, aiming to decrease sailing time and avoid piracy and terrorism along the main existing routes from Hormuz through the Straits of Malacca.

The Northern Sea route normally is open fewer than 2 months in the late summer when the ice is at its minimum. But opportunities for sailing the route are increasing due to climate changes that are melting ice for longer periods of time. The Sovcomflot trial will begin at the Varandey loading terminal in the Barents Sea, 22 km offshore, operated by Lukoil subsidiary Varandey Terminal Co. Lukoil and ConocoPhillips in 2008 completed construction of the Varandey facility, which includes an onshore tank farm, two 24 km offshore pipelines to a loading structure located in 17.5 m depth of water. Varandey has the capacity to export up to 240,000 b/d, most of it from the Yuzhno-Khylchuyu field, 100% owned by Naryanmarneftegas (NMNG), a joint venture company established in 2005 between Lukoil (70%) and ConocoPhillips (30%).

Oil from the Yuzhno-Khylchuyu field is processed at a central facility, then transported along a 162 km pipeline to the Varandey terminal where it is loaded into three 500,000 bbl ice-resistant double-hull Arctic “Class 6” shuttle tankers, owned by Sovcomflot. Last year, Lukoil announced plans to build a crude pipeline from its Kharyaginskoye oil field in the northern Russian region of Timan-Pechora to Varandey. At the time, Lukoil said the new line would enable it to maximize the terminal’s capacity and avoid using Russia’s national pipeline network to export its crude.

This week’s Sovcomflot announcement coincides with a new analyst report that claims China also is preparing for the Arctic being navigable during summer months. “China is slowly but steadily recognizing the commercial and strategic opportunities that will arise from an ice-free Arctic,” said Linda Jakobson, author of the report funded by the Norwegian government and published by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). As China’s economy relies on foreign trade—with nearly half of its gross domestic product dependent on shipping—there could be much to gain if the shipping route from Shanghai to Hamburg is shortened by 6,000 km during the summer each year, the report said. “With insurance costs on the traditional route via the Suez Canal having risen more than tenfold due to piracy, the Nordic countries could become China’s new gateway to Europe,” the SIPRI report said.

# - Amanda Graham - 8 March 2010; 1:26:32 PM

International agreement needed for shipping in Northwest Passage

(Norden - Nordic Council News, 5 March 2010) -- The Canadian Minister of Transport John Baird has announced that Canada will introduce a compulsory register of shipping for all large vessels in the Northwest Passage from 1 July this year. The Nordic Council objects to the proposal in a part of the world the Nordic countries have considered a top priority for international co-operation for many years. 

"The proposal would apply to non-Canadian vessels as well. But it still represents an intolerable interference in the regulation of international traffic," says Niels Sindal, chair of the Danish Delegation to the Nordic Council. The Canadian decision is part of a debate that has raged in recent years about shipping and the rights to raw materials in the Arctic. Canada has traditionally viewed the Northwest Passage as part of its territorial waters. Climate change is expected to make the Passage navigable for much of the year, potentially reducing sailing times between Europe and Asia by some considerable margin. "It is crucial that shipping in the Northwest Passage is regulated by international agreements under the auspices of the IMO if we are to guarantee widespread international support within the UN," Sindal explains.

"The UN's International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the Nordic Council have spent years striving to ensure that matters related to the Arctic are regulated by international agreements." "The Northwest Passage is in international waters. Safety at sea is becoming more and more of a consideration in the area as the volume of shipping increases. Cruises to Greenland alone have increased dramatically in recent years."

It all boils down to money in the final analysis. "Like the other Arctic states, Canada is scrambling for position ahead of the negotiations that will start after 2014 about the rights to the continental shelf in the Arctic, which will provide access to natural resources," concludes Sindal, who intends to raise the issue at the next meeting of the Nordic Council in April.

# - Amanda Graham - 7 March 2010; 2:52:08 AM

Danes with dogs to join military sovereignty patrol of Canadian Arctic

(Bob Weber/The Canadian Press, 3 March 2010) -- Canadian soldiers who will patrol higher into Canada's Arctic than ever before to enforce national sovereignty will do so with the help of a country often seen as a chief rival for control of the increasingly accessible region. A specialized Danish military dogsled team is to join about 150 soldiers and Canadian Rangers next month on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island and out on the sea ice. The military has been to that part of the island before, but it has never ventured beyond land's end and out toward the boundary of Canadian jurisdiction. "We're going to project our forces out onto the Arctic Ocean," said Brig.-Gen. David Millar, commander of the military's Joint Task Force North. This year's Operation Nunalivut, the latest in an increasingly long string of Canadian Arctic military exercises, will also be the first chance for some members of the army's recently created Arctic response units to actually train in the North. "It's the first time for them," said Millar. "They will be joining us to begin to understand the environmental conditions and the terrain so they can acquire the necessary expertise to live, survive and operate in the High Arctic." From April 6-26, the soldiers will be based out of Alert on Ellesmere's northern tip, head west to Ward Island along the path of previous patrols and then out onto the sea ice. They will take note of ice and open-water conditions. They'll also test new communications systems that would allow them to set up a local area network right on the Arctic Ocean, as well as new GPS technology that would track the progress and movements of individual soldiers. There will also be practice helicoptering soldiers on and off floating ice pans to build expertise for future search-and-rescue operations.

# - Amanda Graham - 7 March 2010; 2:47:34 AM