Many countries including the USA &
Russia are now considering the Arctic as a viable future source of enormous
energy supplies. It is estimated that the Arctic still holds 90 billion barrels of undiscovered recoverable oil, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids. More than 70 percent of the undiscovered natural gas is thought to exist in three main areas - the West Siberian Basin, the East Barents Basins, and Arctic Alaska. Russia is already the World’s largest gas producer and much of the undiscovered gas in the Arctic lies within its territory.
All the countries that have Arctic borders, the USA,
Canada,
Greenland,
Norway & Russia are eager to get at these natural resources. It looks like they may be helped by the
warming climate and
retreating ice which will make it easier to access the minerals that lie buried deep below the Arctic.
Mining
There is a rich history of
mining in the Arctic.
Gold exploration and mining was started by Russian explorers in Alaska during the early 1800s and that increased after the USA acquired the region. The Klondike Gold Rush which began in the late 19th Century and brought prospectors from all over the World to Alaska and
Dawson City in Canada’s
Yukon. Gold mining continues there today and over 12.5 million ounces have so far been extracted since its discovery. In the
Swedish Arctic, open pit iron ore mining began at
Kiruna in the 1890s and underground mining started there in the 1960s. Today, the Kiruna Mine is the largest and most modern underground iron ore mine in the world. The most northerly mine in the Arctic is to be found at 78°N on the archipelago of
Svalbard ( Spitsbergen). The Norwegians and the Russians have been
mining coal there since the 1890s.
The mineral wealth of the Arctic is immense and mining companies are both prospecting and extracting a wide variety of minerals: coal, copper, diamonds, gold, iron ore, lead, nickel, palladium, uranium and zinc to mention just some. The Arctic’s largest mineral deposits are to be found in
Siberia. The Norilsk Nickel company which mines on the
Taymyr Region in the north central Siberia owns rights to about one fifth of the entire World’s nickel deposits, while the Siberian
Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) has an estimated one quarter of the World’s diamonds. In Russia it has often been said that, “The future of Russia lies in Siberia,” and that is probably correct.
Text © B & C Alexander
