As previously reported, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in the upcoming 23rd License Round intends to offer a total of 61 licenses in northern waters. Among the new licenses will be four blocks located at 73 degrees north, on the latude of the Bear Island and the Svalbard Fisheries Protection Zone.
Never before has drilling been conducted this far north in the Barents Sea.
Environmentalists now issue a strong warning against the plans. According to Greenpeace, an oil spill in the area could have devastating consequences for the vulnerable Arctic environment. “By opening for oil drilling this close to the ice edge, the Norwegian oil minister is pushing the limits”, Greenpeace Arctic Adviser Erlend Tellnes says to BarentsObserver. “A spill would be almost impossible to clean up and could have dramatic consequences for wildlife”, he adds.
Greenpeace also believes that the high north drilling will be a breach with the government’s parliament agreement with two support parties. That agreement states that oil drilling should not take place in areas close to the ice edge.
A study commissioned by Greenpeace and conducted by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute concludes that a spill from one of the northernmost Norwegian blocks could hit the ice edge in only 14 days.
The 23rd Norwegian License Round will be announced in the course of the first half of 2014. Before that time however, oil major Statoil is planning a drilling operation at the Apollo field, another far northern structure. The Apollo well will be drilled presumably in May and possibly by the Ocean Vanguard rig, Petro.no reports
Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the Northern Fleet’s “Admiral Kuznetsov”, has finished repairs and is ready to leave the port of Murmansk. According to a Russian news agency, the vessel will sail to Syria.
A century and a half ago, Norway was home to roughly three thousand brown bears, the majority of bears in all of Scandinavia. By 1930, the bears were virtually extinct. Decades of aggressive management tactics and bounties had wiped out one of the area’s most iconic species.
Microplastics, the tiny plastic particles that are accumulating in marine waters and big lakes around the world, are now showing up in the Arctic waters south and southwest of Svalbard, Norway, a new study says.
REYKJAVIK: The climatic changes taking place in the Arctic are a call to action for the world. We must answer with more international cooperation and more research, says Tore Hattrem, State Secretary of Norway’s Foreign Ministry.
“Partnership should and shall shape the development of the Arctic, therefore cooperation is the starting point for our Arctic policy,” Vladimir Barbin, Senior Arctic Official and representative to the Arctic Council, said at the Arctic Circle 2015 assembly.
August 9th, the Barents Region celebrated the UN International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. The day was commemorated in several parts of the region, including Karasjok in Northern Norway and Teriberka in Northwestern Russia.
Norway’s Foreign Minister Børge Brende has asked Russia for an explanation to the high number of asylum seekers coming to Norway via Russia. Syrian refugees that have lived in Russia for a long time, will be stopped on the border and sent back.