Arctic Oil Developments May Increase in Some Future Scenario

The article; ‘Analysis: Busting the myth of Arctic oil’ suggests that there are several misconceptions about the ease of access and quantity of Arctic oil especially in an era of sanctions against Russia and lower oil prices on the global market that make oil development in the Arctic far less probable or likely than is widely believed. Yet I recall just a decade ago before the development of fracking that the world’s oil supply was believed to be rapidly running down and global reserves had already reached max capacity. Fracking changed all that.

Fracking fundamentally changed the world’s available oil supply. The United States became the largest oil producer and one of the largest exporters on the planet, while Russian reserves had barely begun to be re-energized with fracking, and Saudi Arabia’s fields, not to mention those of Iran that hadn’t been fracked, have the potential for complete apparent renewal of reserves. Fracking in depleted oil fields tends to bring new life and that is a concern for existing developed Arctic oil fields too in regard to the externalities that arise renewing them; economically, environmentally and socially.

Challenge and response paradigms apply not only to indigenous people of the Arctic experiencing harsh weather and unstable global economic forces affecting local employment, they affect the global capital market always in search of new places to invest capital for increase.

Oil developers have much capacity for innovating new technology offshore for drilling. Drone submarine and robots would make even very deep water fields accessible at costs presently unknown. The increase of technology and artificial intelligence to guide machines on the sea floor will increase in quantity and quality while costs may be substantially lowered. Oil field technology for developing benthic regions may catalyze the development of comparable mineral resources using transferable technology. Manganese nodules alone are valued at more than $500 a ton, so it is possible that the interconnected shareholders of oil and mining corporations using proprietary technology will diversify and develop as deep political-economy currents prompt.