This includes 90 billion barrels of oil, enough to supply the world for three years at current consumption rates, or to supply America for 12, and 1,670 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas, which is equal to about a third of the world’s known gas reserves.
The significance of the report is that it puts firm figures for the first time on the hydrocarbon riches which the five countries surrounding the Arctic -- the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark (through its dependency, Greenland) -- have been eyeing up for several years.
It is the increasingly rapid melting of the Arctic sea ice, which last September hit a new record summer low, and of land-based ice on Greenland, which is opening up the possibility of the once frozen wasteland providing a natural resources and minerals bonanza, not to mention a major new transport route -- last year the fabled North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific along the top of Canada was navigable for the first time.
