Oil and gas from the Arc­tic? Test dril­lings nor­the­ast of Sval­bard

During Sep­tem­ber and Octo­ber the Nor­we­gi­an Petro­le­um Direc­to­ra­te (Olje­di­rek­to­ra­tet) arran­ged seven test dril­lings nor­the­ast of Sval­bard. The finan­cing for the­se dril­lings was appro­ved by the Nor­we­gi­an Par­lia­ment (Stort­ing).

Such acti­vi­ties are high­ly con­ten­tious, par­ti­cu­lar­ly becau­se Nor­way cle­ar­ly defi­ned that the­re should be no dril­ling for oil or gas bey­ond the sea ice edge, the line of maxi­mum sea ice expan­si­on in spring. This time the dril­lings were done along Svalbard´s east side, up to the island Kvi­tøya and were going down to 200 meters below the seaf­lo­or. This area lies out­side the pro­tec­tion zone of the archi­pe­la­go but it lies far north of the sea ice edge. In accordance with this fact, the Petro­le­um Direc­to­ra­te declared that the dril­lings had not­hing to do with the oil and gas indus­try. They were just sur­veys of the geo­lo­gi­cal struc­tu­re in this area.

The dis­sen­ting oppo­si­ti­on par­ties in the par­lia­ment, the social libe­ral Venst­re and the green MDG, con­dem­ned this ope­ra­ti­on shar­ply. If so far in the north, oil and gas extra­c­tion is not inten­ded any­way and is not even allo­wed, at least so far, this ope­ra­ti­on was sim­ply a was­te of money, a spea­k­er of the Venst­re said.

In recent years Nor­way pushed for­ward the explo­ra­ti­on of oil and gas fields in the North Atlan­tic – off Lofo­ten and Ves­terå­len – and in the Barents Sea. But not even the­re extra­c­tion is appro­ved ever­y­whe­re, and it is still con­tro­ver­si­al. It is rejec­ted among others by parts of the local popu­la­ti­on, envi­ron­men­tal asso­cia­ti­ons and by the fishing indus­try. Howe­ver, when lar­ge oil and gas fields are dis­co­ver­ed and explo­red con­ti­nuous­ly, as recent­ly hap­pen­ed in the Barents Sea nor­thwest of Ham­mer­fest, this will obvious­ly crea­te facts, regard­less of the cur­rent legal situa­ti­on. Poli­ti­cal decis­i­ons will be influen­ced by the pro­s­pect of eco­no­mic­al pro­fit. In 2012 the for­mer for­eign minis­ter Espen Barth Eide of the social demo­cra­tic Arbei­der­par­tiet alre­a­dy made clear that eco­no­mic con­side­ra­ti­ons are prio­ri­ti­zed when it comes to the Nor­we­gi­an oil and gas resour­ces. Envi­ron­men­tal poli­tics can be adjus­ted, if neces­sa­ry (see also Spitsbergen-Svalbard.com news Nor­we­gi­an for­eign minis­ter about arc­tic oil and gas from Novem­ber 2012).

Source: TV2

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