Svalbard

[Snow crab: the EU hands out 20 licences a year to fish the prized and lucrative delicacy © Terje Bendiksby/NTB Scanpix/Reuters]

Having done Nansen recently, noticed at reference 1, the piece about Svalbard, aka Spitzenberg, in the FT caught my eye this afternoon.

It seems that back in 1925, Norway was awarded oversight of the place while a number of other countries retained access for mining and other purposes - this at a time when off-shore drilling for oil and gas had not really got going. Access which the Russians and others used to establish coal mines. Research, weather and tourists appear to account for most of the remaining activity.

There is now a dispute about access to the waters of the 200 mile continental shelf, over and above access within the 12 mile limit. Does the 'territorial waters' of the treaty mean 200 miles or 12 miles? A dispute which has come to the boil over a Latvian trawler after a delicacy called snow crab, a dispute which will be dealt with by the Norwegian Supreme Court. A dispute with Norway on one side and everyone else on the other, with everyone else, on this occasion, including both Russia and countries of the western bloc.

Norway is also dishing out oil and gas exploration licenses for blocks between Svalbard and Norway. In fact, all the makings of a very messy row.

I associate to people getting excited about the waters around the Malvinas, aka the Falklands, but I have not heard anything on that front for a while. Perhaps it turned out that there were only penguins and seals there. Nothing much you wanted to eat, and nothing much that you could burn. But I guess that might change now, with Argentina ramping up oil and gas exploration in neighbouring Patagonia, as reported in yesterday's FT.

PS 1: at least they have polar bears instead of penguins in Svalbard.

PS 2: Terje Bendiksby does not seem to have his own website, but if Getty Images is anything to go by, he is very keen on politicians and sport, particularly skiing. On the other hand, I dare say there is plenty of interest at reference 4, but I have not yet poked hard enough to find it.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/nansen-by-another.html.

Reference 2: Trawler’s case tests Norwegian control over Arctic archipelago’s resources: Pressure on Oslo over fishing and other activities around Svalbard will increase, says legal firm - Richard Milne, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard.

Reference 4: https://www.ntb.no/scanpix.