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The Arctic oil rush
photo by Greenpeace UK
Scottish oil exploration and extraction firm Cairn Energy has struck oil in the Arctic only weeks after they’d found gas.
Cairn Energy has been drilling off the coast of Greenland in waters up to 500 meters deep since only a couple of months ago. They have since faced opposition from environmental groups like the WWF and Greenpeace, the later of which successfully stopped their operations for a few hours by occupying an oil rig and suspending themselves from tents. Along with the Royal Bank of Scotland, Cairn were also one of the focuses of protest by activists during Edinburgh climate camp back in August.
For now it seems Cairn’s Arctic efforts may pay off, yet if successful, they risk severely damaging the fragile ecosystems around Greenland’s coast-line as well as bringing tons of oil infrastructure and foreign workers into the sparsely populated Arctic nation.
From an article in the Independent:
Cairn is making a major bet on Greenland. The Arctic island – three times the size of Texas but home to just 57,000 people – is tipped as one of the world’s largest undiscovered hydrocarbon reserves, with some analysts estimating it could hold as much as 20 billion barrels of oil and gas under its freezing coastal waters.
An article in the business section of the Scotsman may describe the cheer surrounding the event, but the environmental community has obviously been experiencing no such emotion. Greenland and the Arctic in general are poised to become the new front in conflict between environmentalists and oil companies.
Read more on the story in the Guardian:
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