By Tom Fries Arctic News April 28 - May 5
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THE BEST READS THIS WEEK
Thanks for
joining us this week! If you’ve only got a few minutes to read, I suggest the
following three articles for a longer look.
1. Quick
but cool: A “skew-going” icebreaker – that is, one that can go forward,
backward and sideways when escorting boats – has never been built before. The
first one, a joint Finland-Russia build, is set to be delivered at the end of
2013. According to Naval Today the vessel
is “designed for oil spill response and salvage operations.”
2. Each
week brings a fresh crop of articles that rehash the basics in one way or
another, and one is thus thankful for Michael Byers, who reliably goes deeper
into his issues and puts them in their proper historical context. He points out
this week in a lengthy but
information-rich piece that, in fact, Canada and Russia ought to be
considering supporting one another’s positions on the Northern Sea Route and
the Northwest Passage.
3. When we
talk about the “new” Arctic, much of what we’re talking about is increased
connectivity of one kind or another. A creative and
well-written article from TAI’s Alison Weisburger covers, briefly, three
existent projects to lay trans-Arctic fiber-optic cables, and highlights the
ways in which these projects serve as a metaphor for the nature of the changing
Arctic as a whole.
BLOOD AND TREASURE
Operation
Nunalivut 2012, which took place on Cornwallis and Devon Islands in the
Canadian Arctic, concluded on Friday 27 April. As part of that exercise, divers
examined and tested portions of an experimental network of underwater sensors –
the “Northern Watch Project” – which may one day cover much of Canada’s Arctic
(CBC). The
project is a partnership between Defence Research and Development Canada and
the Department of National Defence. Those portions of the project planned for
the Barrow Strait are estimated to cost $10mn between now and 2015 (Globe and
Mail). MarketWatch
transcribed the Canadian military’s boilerplate regarding Operation Nunalivut,
should you wish to read it.
The
Canadian military also discovered this week that it might be looking at a
near-doubling of the cost of a satellite system it’s hoping to put in place for
Arctic surveillance (OC). Such
cost overruns here and elsewhere will make it tough for the country’s armed
forces to manage expansion of a sort that Roland Paris, in a cogently
written opinion piece via the Canadian International Council, suggests is
necessary to secure the country’s massive borders. In my own estimation, Mr.
Paris’s best point, though, is buried: Canada “punches above its weight” in
building multilateral institutions – this is where human capital instead of
simple dollars and machines can make a real difference.
Mia Bennett
via Eye on the Arctic pointed up
Canada’s advantages over the United States in the defense arena, with a
strong focus on the superiority of Canada’s military communications
infrastructure in the North. A very
similar text from The Republic also highlights the US’s material
unpreparedness for extended Arctic operations. Indeed, nothing I’ve read
suggests that any country’s forces are incredibly well-prepared with the
equipment and training necessary to conduct a large military or
search-and-rescue campaign in the Arctic. This post from
Navy Times catalogues the different ways in which the US is behind the
curve, and the sad story of a search-and-rescue being called off in the
neighborhood of Nahanni Butte in the Northwest Territories is a poignant
reminder that, even on land, such efforts in the Arctic are no easy matter (EOTA).
When we’re
talking about the militarization of the Arctic, people usually point to Russia
as the country to watch. When we do that, it’s useful to remember that Russia
is not yet bristling with effective weaponry – their newest nuclear submarine
in its first test run “had so many flaws that the crew was afraid to sail it,”
and its delivery date has been delayed (BO). Russia
does press ahead, though, ordering 60 new surface ships and submarines,
nationwide, for delivery by 2020 (Naval Today). Next
door in the Nordics, some in Sweden have somehow become worried that the
country’s defenses are inadequate to meet the threats that it may face in the
future (The Local). This
week also heralded announcement of the world’s first “skew-going” icebreaker
(this apparently means it can go forward, backward and sideways, which is cool)
to be Russian-Finnish built and delivered at the end of 2013 (Naval Today). The
vessel is “designed for oil spill response and salvage operations.”
When it
comes to continued hand-wringing about conflict in the Arctic, this article from the
Columbia Political Review, truly, is one of the strangest that I’ve read. It’s
not bad, per se, just…weird. Putin is cast as the heir to Byzantine-era rulers…give
it a skim and see what you think of it. This piece
from Alaska Dispatch takes a slightly more measured tone, but one can
still hear the threatening music playing in the background. The report to which
the Alaska Dispatch article refers is also summarized
here. To see the back-and-forth between the conflict and
cooperation camps, skim this review via eenews.com.
Should you
be newly interested in this area, or have had an inadvisably festive weekend
and need a refresher on the basics, the US State Department kindly provided an overview
of things that you’ve probably heard already about greedy companies, climate
change, harsh weather and inadequate infrastructure.
THE POLITICAL SCENE
Baroness Catherine
Ashton wrote of the EU’s role in the Arctic that a “more coherent,
targeted approach” is needed. Ashton also expressed a desire that “as many
groups as possible” be involved in discussions of Arctic policy issues. Though
inclusiveness is an admirable goal, I weep inwardly at the thought of one more
massive multilateral charged with the management of the Arctic, when both
knowledge and the situation itself change so very rapidly. It’s not just
multilaterals, either. Even at the state level, policymaking can easily come to
a standstill, as it has in Alaska, where both the House and Senate adjourned
without resolving much in the way of the season’s significant questions (AD).
Thanks are
due to Michael Byers for placing current issues in their appropriate historical
context. He certainly does so this week in a lengthy but
information-rich piece suggesting that Canada and Russia ought to be
considering supporting one another’s positions on the Northern Sea Route and
the Northwest Passage. An equally
lengthy but less tidy article with plenty of data but less of a
point to make came out of the Bologna Center Journal of International Affairs –
if you need a refresher course, it’s a good place to start.
Eurasia
Review (warning: their banner ads are for services to match you with charming Russian
or Filipino brides) published a temperate
and comprehensive overview of China’s interests in the Arctic, and the best way
for the world’s most populous country to pursue those interests. Asia Times
also published a lengthy article this week
on the topic.
In Russia,
direct election of regional governors looks as though it will be the new normal
as of this summer (BN), and we
heard that the parole request of Anton Lebedev, a former oil tycoon accused of
money laundering and embezzlement, has been denied (MT, VOR). Neighbor
Norway is dramatically expanding its visa services in Russia, offering lots of
new locations across the latter country (BN). Norway
has also elected to offer Russia an extended deadline to get the paperwork in
order for its satellite station on Svalbard, which Norway earlier demanded that
it remove (BO).
Lastly, RIA
Novosti provides what must be both the unchallenged photo and headline of the
week: Church
Activists Disperse Pussy Riot Supporters with Holy Water.
ENERGY and EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES
It might
have been a slow news week, were it not for Greenpeace. Activists seem to have
boarded the icebreaker Nordica TWICE:
once while it was still docked in Helsinki (EOTA); and then
again off the coast of Sweden (Bloomberg).
Impressive this time: they seem to have boarded it while it was moving. It’s on
its way to Alaska to help Shell out this summer. The protesters were arrested
Thursday (Fox News). If you’d
like to check out a photo gallery of the action, Greenpeace has thoughtfully provided
one.
Other
organizations in the US continue to look for boringly legal ways to delay
Shell’s drilling efforts off of Alaska (enewspf.com), and a piece in
Alaska Dispatch points out that a lot of the discussion of how to
manage drilling off of the state’s coast is taking place between people who
have no actual connection to that part of the world. Should it really be simply
an intellectual exercise? Meanwhile, NOAA issued permits to Shell for
“incidental harassment” under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Interesting
details of what that entails are available in the press
release from NOAA. Shell’s not the only one in an unhappy
relationship in Alaska; ExxonMobil’s Point Thomson oil & gas project –
worth possibly $100bn at today’s prices – is a subject of contentious legal
back-and-forth between the company and the state government (EOTA).
In Russia,
Lukoil has linked arms with Rosneft after watching foreign competitors
ExxonMobil and Eni do the same (RT). The
ExxonMobil deal is reviewed comprehensively by ITAR-TASS here. By the
end of this week, Lukoil was saying it was “ready to drill,” and word was that
Lukoil would offer Rosneft participation in its own projects elsewhere in
exchange for access to Rosneft’s Arctic and Black Sea properties (BO). Platts
gave a quick
update on the collaboration between the two Russian firms, while a
solid article
from EurActiv offered a review of the recent changes in Russia’s attitude
towards Arctic drilling and foreign involvement in its O&G sector.
The Moscow
Times wrote up a piece well worth reading on the internal
politicking – or lack thereof – between Shtokman partners Gazprom, Total and
Statoil. Barents
Observer helped to flesh out the picture, mentioning that changes in
responsibilities for the different phases of development may also lie ahead. Increases
in taxes on Russia’s gas producers – Gazprom and others – were suddenly
announced this week as well, to general disapproval and squawking (FT). It’s so
strange to read that and then to see exactly the opposite message coming out
of Russia Today and Interfax. Reuters
meanwhile reports that further tax breaks are in the works for “tight”
oil in Russia. I have to admit I’m confused – perhaps Arctic projects are meant
to enjoy tax benefits that will not apply elsewhere.
The Trebs oil
field (Lukoil-Bashneft) spill that made headlines last week is now closed off,
but it doesn’t look like cleanup is going to be fun or easy. The spill covers
40,000 square meters, and the snow that’s absorbed the oil must be removed
largely by hand (BO), which
sounds like awful work. If you’d like, check out a quick
video that purports to show the spill. In spite of these very
public failures, production from the Bovanenko gas field on the Yamal peninsula
is scheduled to start next month (The
Financial).
In
Scandinavia, Norway is (as mandated) giving the public the opportunity to
comment on its next licensing round (Reuters), while the
future of the country’s most northerly offshore gas – LNG or pipeline – is
being hashed out by a set of competing corporate, national and regional
interests (BO). It will
be interesting to see how it turns out. Exploration continues as well: TGS
started a 3D seismic survey of 2,400km square of the Barents (Reuters), and Det
Norske Veritas took on a small company in Northern Norway to help expand its
spill mitigation and risk consulting services (AB). National
champion Statoil is meanwhile doing marginally better at recovering available
resources, hitting 50% at some wells (Offshore).
Elsewhere,
an oil spill (from a tank, not a well) in northern Finland appears to have been
underestimated by a factor of 20 (EOTA), and
Swedish power looks like it will be significantly cheaper this year than last (EOTA). Meanwhile
Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has argued that an outright ban on Arctic
drilling would be “irresponsible” (The Local).
As natural
gas prices languish in North America and the Mackenzie pipeline project starves,
the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, which would control about 1/3 of the pipeline,
has said it’s open to discussions of a liquefaction option to get gas from the
Mackenzie delta to reach Asian markets instead (Reuters). The
relationship between extractive companies and first nation groups continues to
be actively negotiated (Globe &
Mail). Meanwhile NWT Minister of Industry David Ramsay said this
week at a conference in Houston that the Northwest Territories’ offshore
properties, which the federal government is considering for development, “have
the oil potential to rival the Gulf of Mexico.” (Note: Really?) Chevron Canada
will be at work this summer collecting seismic data to check on that (Upstream). At Fort
Liard, also in the NWT, an old BP project that hasn’t been cleaned up yet is
leaving a bitter taste in citizens’ mouths (EOTA). Even
hydroelectric projects aren’t popular; a recent movie covers a potential
linkage between massive bird die-offs in the Canadian North and changes brought
about by hydro projects (EOTA).
I’d been
wondering in the back of my head why we’d heard nothing about Japan’s
engagement with Arctic oil and gas. It seemed illogical. Finally, a tidbit: the
US Department of Energy, ConocoPhillips and the Japanese government are
collaborating on research to extract gas from methane hydrates in Arctic Alaska
(National
Journal). There’s much more detail on the project itself available from the
Daily Herald, and you can read Secretary
Steven Chu’s statement on the project from the Dep’t of Energy website, if
you like.
We
mentioned last week the possibility that the interest in Murmansk’s port owned
by the state would be sold to coal company SUEK; the sale did indeed go through
(BN). Also in
Murmansk, Norilsk Nickel, world’s largest producer of nickel and palladium,
announced a 3% increase in production of nickel from its Polar and Kola divisions
over Q1 2011. This year, that means 58,600 tons (steelguru.com). It also
looks like the company’s taxes make up about 30% of the Murmansk region’s
budget (4-traders).
Next door
in Finland, the Talvivaara mine (nickel and cobalt) is facing tough scrutiny
because of apparent environmental violations (EOTA). Coupled
with earlier speculation that poisonous gasses in the mine caused the death of a
worker, the offenses are enough for Finland’s environment minister Ville
Niinistö to warn that operations at the mine might be suspended (EOTA).
In Canada,
the Nunavut Impact Review Board is getting ready to offer a final review of the
Mary River iron project (NN), which
means there’s light at the end of the tunnel for the Baffinland Iron Mines
Corp. A proposed rail line to serve the project, however, might impact a
one-of-a-kind series of inukshuit nearby (EOTA), which is
raising eyebrows. In Yukon, people are trying to put as positive a face as
possible on a ca. 40% decline in exploration over last year’s figures (EOTA). If
you’ve got an interest in mines, it’s worth reading Aboriginal Affairs and
Northern Development Canada’s FAQs on mineral tenure in the
Northwest Territories and Nunavut, which apply to the Mary River project, or
some of the few
presentations that were recently uploaded from the Nunavut Mining
Symposium.
SOCIETY, HEALTH, CONNECTIVITY and EDUCATION
[Connectivity]
A lot of
what we’re talking about when we talk about the “new” Arctic is interconnection
of one kind or another, and how best to facilitate that. A great article from TAI’s
Alison Weisburger covers, briefly, three existent projects to lay trans-Arctic
fiber-optic cables, and highlights the ways in which these projects serve as a
metaphor for the nature of the changing Arctic as a whole. The Nordic countries
are meanwhile shaping up to be central to Northern connectivity by playing host
to data centers. Those customers are drawn by the availability of renewable
energy and low electricity prices (NYT).
Physical
connectivity is also a perpetual challenge, and Yukon’s northernmost community,
Old Crow, is asking the federal government for help to build a winter road in (EOTA). Murmansk
is also undertaking road improvements; a RUB1.6bn fix-up will start in June (BN). Also in
Yukon, the Yukon Energy Corp. is looking at rate increases for the first time
since 1999 to cope with aging infrastructure and higher energy consumption (Whitehorse
Star). Next door in the Northwest Territories’ capital
Yellowknife, power infrastructure took a hit last week when a military
helicopter took down some power lines, causing damage estimated at $2.4mn (CBC).
Providing
better information for all purposes in Canada’s North is in some part the role
of the Canadian Space Agency. President Steve
Maclean’s speech at IPY2012 mentioned some of the different projects
underway for this purpose, and highlighted the intimate cooperation that must
take place between the CSA and, for example, Fisheries & Oceans, or the
Dep’t of National Defence.
[Health]
In Alaska
and around the Arctic, many health issues are related to problems of food
access, as Nick Moe of the Alaska Center for the Environment points out (Inst
of the North). Mr. Moe points to estimates that the Alaskan food supply
would last no more than three to seven days if shipping ceased, and that less
than 5% of the state’s food consumed is produced in-state. It is Canada,
however, that has the “dubious distinction of being the first wealthy nation to
be probed by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.” This
is an issue not only for aboriginal communities but for citizens living below
the poverty line across Canada (Canada.com). Sometimes
scarcity is the issue, but it can also be health; country food can often
contain dangerous levels of contaminants (EOTA). It’s not
just food, either; water safety is a pervasive issue among aboriginal
communities across Canada (Global News). Even
more generally, budget cuts to the departments of health and justice are cause
for concern (CBC), and the
inevitable “modernization” of Inuit society will be a painful process – or so,
at least, says Louis Fortier of ArcticNet (OC).
[Education]
Although it
seems patronizing to talk about “Inuit society” as something that requires
modernization, stronger educational systems will certainly be a critical
component of adaptability to the changing the Arctic. Steps are being taken in
that direction by the Muskox Program in Igloolik, which focuses on literacy,
technology and distance learning (Nunavut
Echo), while a program at Nunavut Arctic College works to teach
basic Inuktitut to nursing students (Nunavut Echo). There’s
also a new version of the Bible in Inuktitut, along with further evidence that
there’s just no telling what the Washington Post will or won’t find newsworthy
(WaPo).
Further South, the community at Queen’s University is working on networking
between departments to benefit from one another’s Arctic research (press
release). It’s surprisingly tough, breaking down those silos, so I
wish them luck.
BUSINESS and INDUSTRY
It was a
quiet week in Arctic business and industry, although we did hear that networks
of Northern businesses are beginning to appear. A network of Inuit
businesswomen in Canada will have its first workshops in Iqaluit this fall (EOTA).
[Shipping]
This very upbeat
blog post from Voice of America seems to treat the proposed Bering Sea
tunnel as a forehead-smitingly obvious project, which I find difficult to
believe considering the many other (politically much more important) projects
that are being cut from national budgets the world over. But true: it would
change the shipping game, if the tunnel could reliably carry large volumes of
freight as well as people. Particularly if it meant that companies didn’t have
to spend £16,000 a day for tankers and cargo vessels (tradewinds.com).
Shipping: not a cheap business.
[Fisheries]
Russia has
embargoed fish cargoes from thirteen Norwegian suppliers, apparently for potential
heavy-metal contamination. The move seems to have resulted in confusion more
than anything else (fis.com, BN). Russia
is hardly all virtue, however, and Alaska’s senators are pressing the president
to get tough on Russian “pirate” fisheries (press
release). Meanwhile Icelandic technology will soon enable Murmansk
fisheries to dry and export leftover bits of cod (heads, spines, tails) to
Africa (BN). The
world is an amazing place.
SCIENCE, ENVIRONMENT and WILDLIFE
Heartfelt
thanks to David Barber, who spent last winter collecting data on weather in
open-water sections of the Arctic to demonstrate that, in fact, it’s similar to
the stormy Pacific or Atlantic. Thanks as well to Lawson Brigham of the U of
Alaska Fairbanks, who goes out on a limb to say that we won’t, in fact, be
seeing a significant new trans-polar shipping route in the near future (CBC,
via Alaska
Dispatch).
Marilyn
Heiman, Director of the US Arctic Program at the Pew Environment Group,
published a piece calling for several different steps to protect the Arctic
environment as exploratory drilling commences (HuffPo).
The Norwegian government also published an assessment of the state of the
climate, and is putting in place numerous measures to help the country meet its
emissions goals by a 2050 deadline (IceNews).
A blog
from the American Geophysical Union also reinforced the importance of
incorporating local knowledge into research in the High North.
As part of
the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (drilling for research purposes, not oil
exploration), an international team of scientists is headed to the Beaufort to
study the increase in oceanic methane release by looking at undersea permafrost
and gas deposits (Canada.com).
There’s concern that the “lid” keeping these deposits in may be fracturing (EOTA),
although that fear might be assuaged by this
great photo from NASA’s recent IceBridge mission. But let’s not make too
much of a big deal out of this – the people who actually did the recent study on
oceanic methane release were quite clear that we’re not talking about
immediate, dramatic catastrophe.
A couple of
weeks ago we mentioned the inauguration of a couple of new nature preserves in
the vicinity of Murmansk. Now, in what might be a surprise, it looks like OAO Acron,
a significant producer of Russian phosphates, will at least consider re-routing
its transit routes to accommodate the new park (Bloomberg).
While that’s good news for Russian parks, Canada’s parks system is looking at
some really tough hits in the latest rounds of budget cuts – down more than
1,600 jobs (CBC).
Word came
out this week in many different news outlets that polar bears have now been
documented as extremely long-distance swimmers. The paper under discussion
tracked 50 swims via GPS, and came up with an average length of 96 miles (NYT
blog, BO).
Swims went as long as 10 days, non-stop (Daily
Mail). Yikes. And, although the research team very explicitly said that
they have no previous data, and thus no way of knowing whether the bears are
swimming farther on average now or not (as you will see in the New York Times
blog referenced above), the International
Polar Foundation pitched it that way. Meanwhile phys.org
made the important though unsurprising point that raw population numbers of
predator or prey species don’t actually tell much in an ocean context; the
location of those populations is critical to assessing an ecosystem’s health.
Greenlanders
are protesting against a Danish department store’s decision to stop selling all
fur products other than those taken as part of food hunting (politiken.dk),
while reindeer herders in Finland
are protesting instead at the government’s policies that reduce compensation
for depredation by wolves, etc (YLE).
For some chuckles involving prey species of, apparently, many kinds, check out
this article
from Pravda.ru on Russian bear-hunting, not really for the article but for
the other headlines along the side, like “Murderous Butcher Albright to Receive
Award”.
And, while
humans fret and argue, gray whales continue their migration northward through
Alaskan waters this week (AD).
Narwhal are simultaneously heading southward, or so it would appear from the
World Wide Fund for Nature’s narwhal
tracker. Note: Don’t miss the delightful video on the process of netting
and tagging narwhal. Non-living creatures count, too: an astonishingly complete
bison skeleton somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 years old was found in a
basement in Whitehorse by a man digging a trench (redorbit.com).
THE GRAB BAG
We learned
this week that Mary Simon, long-time president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, will
not be running for reelection this year (EOTA).
If you like
to geek out on languages, as many of us do, then you’ll enjoy this
article from Alaska Dispatch, which points to research
connecting one of the least-spoken languages in Siberia with the Athabaskan
language family in Canada.
The history
of the Arctic convoys that ran from Great Britain to Arkhangelsk and Murmansk
during WWII, helping to keep Stalin’s Russia supplied and thus keep Russia as
an ally, is one of the most gripping and compelling sub-plots of the tragic
history of Europe’s convulsions in the early 40’s. A review of the criteria by
which medals are awarded in the UK may result in campaign medals going to some
of the ca. 200 remaining survivors (Telegraph, Voice of Russia).
In Finland,
also thought of as a hard-drinking nation, spirits are beginning to lose ground
to wine (YLE). I bet
not this past week, though, as May Day celebrations took place across the
country (YLE).
Here is a
legitimately fun-to-read
overview of Murmansk. Thanks, Barents Observer.
PICS: The
Civil Air Search and Rescue Association trains near Iqaluit (CBC).
ABBREVIATION KEY
Aftenbladet
(AB)
Alaska
Dispatch (AD)
Anchorage
Daily News (ADN)
Barents Nova
(BN)
Barents
Observer (BO)
BusinessWeek
(BW)
Eye on the
Arctic (EOTA)
Fairbanks
News Miner (FNM)
Globe and
Mail (G&M)
Moscow Times
(MT)
Northern
News Service Online (NNSO)
Nunatsiaq
News (NN)
Ottawa
Citizen (OC)
RIA Novosti
(RIAN)
Russia Today
(RT)
Voice of Russia (VOR)
