Are we discussing tongue twisters this week?

No, this is about the protests against Anglo-Dutch oil major Shell hacking through Arctic ice to drill for oil.

Ah. That doesn’t sound very eco-friendly.

That’s the nature of oil drilling, but something about violating the pristine beauty of the Arctic is raising hackles.

Is there a lot of oil in the Arctic region?

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Arctic is estimated to hold the world’s largest remaining untapped gas reserves and some of its largest undeveloped oil reserves. But plunging our greedy fingers into this pie will have implications for the environment, and global climate in general. WWF adds that a significant proportion of these reserves lie offshore, in the Arctic’s shallow and biologically productive seashelf.

According to a study published in February by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in the US, the chances of one or more oil spills occurring as a result of drilling in the Arctic over the next 77 years are 75 per cent.

Wow! So those are clear signs for not drilling.

You would assume so, but the same bureau has approved Shell’s oil and gas exploration plan off the coast of Alaska.

With the new approval this week, the Obama administration has opened about 30 million acres of US Arctic waters for oil exploration, saying the Arctic remains an important component of the country’s energy strategy.

Didn’t the company spill oil near Mexico a few years back?

If you’re referring to the major oil spill that happened off the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, that was BP. Shell also had a minor oil spill in the same region a year later. But more importantly, Shell has had accidents in the Arctic region itself, which included abandoning an oil rig carrying 150,000 gallons of fuel in Arctic waters to avoid an upcoming tax liability.

How bad can a potential oil spill be?

The bureau that approved Shell returning to the Arctic for oil exploration has itself admitted that between 44 per cent and 62 per cent of crude oil resulting from a spill “would stay put — neither dispersing nor evaporating — even after 30 days”. Greenpeace has said that any potential spill in the Arctic region would be nearly impossible to clean up, since the factors that cause an oil spill (like lack of natural light, floating ice, strong winds) will also make cleaning up after a disaster impossible.

Marine life may be harmed as well.

In fact, Greenpeace has said that while we should be taking Arctic ice melting due to rising temperatures as early warning of climate change, oil companies are instead using melting ice caps for financial gain.

Is the US the only nation exploring the Arctic?

Far from it. Russia claims more than a million square kilometres from its shores up till the North Pole as its territorial waters, and ExxonMobil had, until recently, an agreement to explore part of the region with Russian state-owned oil company, Rosneft. Canada, Norway and Denmark (through Greenland) also have interests in hydrocarbons lying under the ice. And then there’s the dark horse...

Which is?

China. Although the country has no territorial claim to the region, China is helping Russia with billions of dollars to develop offshore fields and build pipelines through Siberia to its mainland. The Arctic, it seems, is this century’s gold rush.

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