[CarlV]

Interesting article in Newsweek and most of the world. They had a related blip on CBS but this could be real big. Unless Trump actually is the Russian agent he acts like is trying to cover up? Obama did nothing because of environmental reasons but that is over with now.

In October 2014, the Yamal, a Russian nuclear icebreaker with enormous shark teeth painted on its bow, rammed through the thick ice at the North Pole as a research vessel followed behind it, firing its seismic guns. Its multiyear mission: find oil and natural gas and help claim the Arctic sea bottom in Moscow’s name. In January, as Russian scientists were finalizing the test results, one of the mission’s leaders was elated as he stood before a rapt audience in Tromsø, a stunningly beautiful Arctic city in Norway. “We assure you, there is oil there,” said Gennady Ivanov of Russia’s Marine Arctic Geological Expedition. “And the oil is recoverable,” he noted later, in response to a question.

U.S. and European oil companies have long fantasized about tapping the Arctic’s abundant reserves; the U.S. Geological Survey estimates they make up to 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its natural gas. Now, as rising temperatures cause more ice to melt, which is clearing Arctic seas, the trillion-dollar race to own the region’s riches is on. In 2012, Russia tried to claim 460,000 square miles of Arctic ocean floor—an area the size of France and Spain—as national territory. Moscow did so as part of a treaty called the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which allows countries to expand the undersea area where they own mineral rights beyond the currently recognized 200-mile limit. The catch? Russia must prove to a committee of international scientists based at the United Nations that the area is an extension of its continental shelf.

The committee initially rejected Moscow’s claim, sending Russian scientists back to the High North to search for more evidence. Ivanov now insists the proof exists. If he’s right, it will help Russian President Vladimir Putin achieve two of his primary Arctic goals: to boost his country’s massive oil and natural gas reserves and to encourage commercial shipping through an Arctic shortcut between European and Asian ports.

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Even as Moscow waits for the science committee’s decision about the North Pole, its Arctic energy push is yielding results. Russian land-based oil and natural gas production in the Arctic is peaking year after year. In January, Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom Neft company announced that four oil wells are up and running at the Prirazlomnoye fields in the Arctic Pechora Sea, and the company plans to put 28 more online. Meanwhile, a new, $27 billion liquid natural gas plant, based in the Arctic and jointly funded by Russian, Chinese and French energy companies, is moving gas south to Europe through a new 786-mile-long pipeline.
Competing for Resources

Once considered too remote and dangerous for commerce, the Arctic is about to get a lot more crowded. Norway is expanding its search for oil in the region and recently offered a new round of oil leases in the Barents Sea, farther north than ever before. Despite the challenges of High North drilling, an official from the Norwegian oil and gas association told Newsweek the break-even cost will be $45 a barrel. So even if global oil prices remain low, Norway’s newest Arctic operation will quickly become profitable.

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Maybe it is just me who hasn't heard of this. It could be huuuuuuuge LOL.