MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands' ocean bed dispute and lure for “Earth's last frontier”

Argentina will object any British initiative to extend the “illegitimate occupation” of the Falkland Islands and its adjoining waters, in the event of such a decision, Argentine Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Taiana was quoted on Monday by the Buenos Aires press from New York.

Taiana added there was "nothing new" in the British pretension to claim an extension of the South Atlantic territories since "once again London is elaborating on rights it does not have". The Guardian newspaper last Friday published that Britain might want to expand claims in the South Atlantic seabed, including round the Falklands, based on international law which contemplates that coastal nations can extend their claims on the seabed beyond the current 200 miles economic zone up to 350 miles from the coastline. Claims can be submitted to the United Nations before the deadline runs out in May 2009. Taiana currently in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly said Argentina would present an "objection" to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, "on time and form" as contemplated in the Law of the Sea Convention, in the event of a British decision. However, The Guardian reported that the British claim in the Falklands would go east in the direction of South Georgia. In Buenos Aires the United Kingdom Embassy spokesman downplayed the issue. "This is not a new issue; we have already had useful contacts on the matter with the Argentine Foreign Ministry. Meetings took place in 2001 and 2004. Earlier this year we proposed a further meeting, which we hope will happen because it will be another example of cooperation with Argentina in areas of mutual interest in the South Atlantic," he insisted. The Embassy spokesman stressed that as far as actually submitting the claim to the UN, "no decisions have been made". An Argentine Foreign Affairs ministry release in Buenos Aires underlined that Argentina is "profoundly committed to honoring of the Law of the Sea Convention and in defense of the national interest". The Guardian actually mentioned the possibility of territorial claims not only round the Falklands, but also Ascension Island and Rockall in the hope of "annexing potentially lucrative gas, mineral and oil fields". The UK claims exploit a novel legal approach that is transforming the international politics of underwater prospecting. Relying on detailed geological and geophysical surveys by scientists and hydrographers, any state can delineate a new "continental shelf outer limit" that can extend up to 350 miles from its shoreline. Data has been collected for most of Britain's submissions and Chris Carleton, head of the law of the sea division at the UK Hydrographic Office and an international expert on the process, said preliminary talks on Rockall are being held in Reykjavik, Iceland, this week. Martin Pratt, director of research at Durham University's international boundaries research unit, added: "The Russians may be claiming the Arctic but the UK is claiming a large chunk of the Atlantic. Some states might ask why a big power is entitled to huge stretches of the ocean's resources thousands of miles away from its land, but that's the way the law is." The Guardian reports that because of the sensitivities – "earlier this year Buenos Aires scrapped a 1995 agreement with the UK to share any oil found in the adjacent waters - the first formal application from the UK is likely to centre on Ascension". The volcanic island, 1,000 miles from the African mainland, sits just to one side of the mid-Atlantic ridge. No gas or oil is likely to be found below the surrounding waters but there could be significant mineral deposits on the ocean floor. Talks have already begun between Ireland, Iceland and Denmark for the division of rights far out into the north Atlantic. It includes the island of Rockall and the sub-sea Hatton ridge. The competing claims are nowhere near final resolution although Ireland and the UK have agreed a common boundary. Other countries that have submitted claims to the ocean floors around remote overseas dependencies have run into fierce resentment from neighboring nations. France, which this summer registered its claim to thousands of square miles around New Caledonia, in the Pacific, has received protests from Vanuatu warning that the claim has "serious implications and ramifications on Vanuatu's legal and traditional sovereignty". Russia was criticized this summer for making claims beneath the Arctic Ocean. In a related article The Guardian says the "extended underwater territory" rights has provoked a scramble for underwater land almost as fierce as the one for Africa in the 19th century when European countries divided up the continent between them. In total, as much as 2.7m square miles - an area similar in size to Australia - is believed to be at stake. It includes the Arctic where Russia recently claimed land below the North Pole, new islands off India which have emerged from the sea, and Pacific Ocean islands claimed by Australia. The lure of the Earth's final frontiers is the possibility of oil, gas and minerals deposits. Shrinking resources and growing energy needs mean any new territory is at a premium, particularly as new technologies are changing the face of exploration and mineral recovery. The idea of drilling for diamonds off South Africa, or for oil five miles deep off Australia seemed impossible only a decade ago. Today they are real possibilities. There is also growing awareness of "oil peak", the point when global demand for oil will outstrip supply. This week Lord Oxburgh, former chairman of Shell, told a conference in Ireland the tipping point could come within 20 years as production leveled and new deposits became harder to find. "The world may be sleepwalking into a problem which is actually going to be very serious and it may be too late to do anything about it by the time we are fully aware," he said. Britain has long been aware of the potential of three of its territorial gains. Its companies have seismically tested the seabed off Ascension Island, Rockall and the Falklands but no wells have been drilled to date and no economically significant hydrocarbon discoveries have been made. However, geologists are optimistic that a large area of seabed running from the Bay of Biscay past the west coast of Ireland and into the Atlantic could be hiding a massive new oilfield. Rockall, the 25-metre (80ft) lump of granite which is claimed by Iceland, Ireland, Norway and Britain, is expected to be of enormous significance. When British marines raised the flag there in 1957, they had no inkling there was anything but fish around. At the time it was described as the last land grab of the British Empire. Today environmentalists argue it was the first of British eco-colonialism.