The even colder dispute for black gold and Chinese knock offs.

[Xoon]

 

Because of climate change, new trade routes to Asia is opening up over the arctics. To top this off, it is estimated that 30% of the world oil reserves is there 13% around Svalbard. Russia and Norway are working on grabbing as much as the arctic as they can, while Canada and Denmark is currently having their new borders reviewed by the UN. Same applies to Russia, but they top it off with military presence. 

 

 

Svalbard is a peculiar thing in the north however. Because of the Svalbard treaty, any signers can exploit its resources at the islands or sea and it is a demilitarized zone. Also, you can freely immigrate to Svalbard, without ID, passport or whatever, as long as you come from a participant country. Funny enough, Afghanistan is one of them.

 

What causes conflict is the overlapping claims in the Arctic between the Canadians, Danes and Russians, all claiming the North pole. On top of this, because of the Svalbard treaty and the larger amounts of oil there, Russia wants to get in. However, Norway claims that the Svalbard treaty does not include the resources below the sea, and has laid claimed to the Continental shelf around Svalbard. This has angered the Russians, accusing Norway of violating the treaty.  The dispute is if "exploiting the ocean" counts as exploiting the hydrocarbon deposits below it.

 

If not, then the Barents sea treaty states that Norway owns it, because of a line drawn between Norway and Russia in 2010, which states that Norway own the continental shelf on it's side of the border, which includes Svalbard.  The only exception is deposits that cross the border, in which case close cooperation between the two parties must the done. 

 

This is a lot of money. They claim this could make Norway the next Saudi Arabia. Adding to this, china is currently in the process of buying land in Svalbard.

 

I wonder what the US will, say, if they support Russia, so that they can drill oil themselves or if they support Norway and is allocated drilling rights by the Norwegian government.

 

This is a huge deal of Norway, as we have the closets warm water ports to the arctic.  

 

 

Relevant documents:
http://www.jus.uio.no/english/services/library/treaties/01/1-11/svalbard-treaty.xml

https://www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/upload/ud/vedlegg/folkerett/avtale_engelsk.pdf

 

[LoooSeR]

I can't take that videos seriously with those Soviet athems and almost all footage of russians were some military drills.

[Xoon]

5 hours ago, LoooSeR said:

I can't take that videos seriously with those Soviet athems and almost all footage of russians were some military drills.

Yeah, try to look past the propaganda parts. I posted them since they gave neat graphics on claims, oil deposits and talked about trade.

[LoooSeR]

11 hours ago, Xoon said:

Yeah, try to look past the propaganda parts. I posted them since they gave neat graphics on claims, oil deposits and talked about trade.

I understand the point, but war for some frozen island? Our gov. will have hard time to justify it.

[LostCosmonaut]

I’d assume that the US would support Norway in any dispute, due to the NATO connection and desire to contain Russia.

 

Norway’s economy already has a lot of oil money coming in, how are they doing at preventing Dutch Disease? I’ve heard they’re doing better than the middle eastern petrostates, but that’s not exactly a high bar to clear.

[Xoon]

3 hours ago, LostCosmonaut said:

I’d assume that the US would support Norway in any dispute, due to the NATO connection and desire to contain Russia.

 

Norway’s economy already has a lot of oil money coming in, how are they doing at preventing Dutch Disease? I’ve heard they’re doing better than the middle eastern petrostates, but that’s not exactly a high bar to clear.

Norway's current strategy is to invest the oil money in the Sovereign wealth fund, which then is used to diversely invest in the stock market, which the country can live on in the future. 

The New government, the Right-left-Progressive-christian coalition has a new strategy, investing in the industry and growing other sectors and making Norway more entrepreneur friendly.

 

But the Dutch disease is still very real. The oil crisis hit the Norwegian economy pretty hard. 50 000 people lost their jobs in the oil sector, and many more from the sectors living off the oil sector ( shipping, supply). This caused a lot of ships to be decommissioned. On the other hand, the fishing industry boomed, with some fishers making up to 600 USD a day. This also helped along the automation industry.

 

But Norway has no automotive industry, no aircraft industry, a agricultural sector that lives on subsidies, and in general very little industry outside exceptions ones like furniture, ammunition, missiles, and aluminum. 
The previous governmental decisions are completely to blame for it, like shooting down any attempts at a automotive industry. 

 

At least we are good at making millionaires, we are however, bad at keeping them around and taxing them. 

 

Oh and, the reason Norway began handing out licences in the Barents sea is because our current oil deposits are running out.

 

@LoooSeR
Not a war, maybe sanctions or sour relations. 

[Priory_of_Sion]

On 12/23/2017 at 4:27 PM, Xoon said:

the Right-left-Progressive-christian coalition

That's something you don't see in Merica. 

 

What is the Norwegian opposition's platform regarding this looming oil crisis/dispute?  

 

 

Looking at the potential reserves in the Arctic on the Business Insider map, Russia looks like it is in a good position to take advantage of deposits in the western Barents Sea towards Franz Josef Land without needing to get too antagonistic towards Norway. 

[Xoon]

11 hours ago, Priory_of_Sion said:

That's something you don't see in Merica. 

It should be noted that the right party is Liberal Conservative, the left party is Social Liberal, The Progressives are classic liberal and Christian party is, the Christian party, nobody cares, people just vote for them since they are THE Christian party.
So the coalition could be called a Liberal coalition.

 

The opposing group was the Labor-Center-Socialistic-environmentalist-communist Coalition. 
With the labor party being unionist, workers rights, socialist and for more wealthfare. Center party is basically social democratic agricultural party, previously called the farmers party. Socialists are socialist, not really much new there. The environmentalists are basically communist hippies detached from reality. They wanted to remove all diesel vehicles by 2040, want us to stop expanding hydropower, and instead invest in wind and solar, very rational for country with periods with only 4 hours of sunlight a day, and further north, zero for 3 months. The Reds, is basically a communist party (they identify as communist, though call themselves socialist is public), take everything related to communism and slap it together, and you have the Reds. 

Which makes this a socialist coalition. 

 

11 hours ago, Priory_of_Sion said:

 

What is the Norwegian opposition's platform regarding this looming oil crisis/dispute?  

 

 

Looking at the potential reserves in the Arctic on the Business Insider map, Russia looks like it is in a good position to take advantage of deposits in the western Barents Sea towards Franz Josef Land without needing to get too antagonistic towards Norway. 

Norway is for the most part, just ignoring Russia's complaint and trying not to make a big fuzz out of it, so that the environmentalists don't catch wind of it.

 

Only thing I have seen through the Norwegian media and heard from oil industry is that Norway opened 3 new zones in the Barents sea for oil drilling. Simply going with the Barents sea treaty. The small line stretching out of Norway up to Svalbard is the product of that treaty.

 

The only opposition internally to drilling oil in the arctics is from environmentalists, who are afraid it will hurt the environment. And some that feel we should seek to grow other sectors instead.