UK eyes Atlantic oil, gas
Sunday, September 23, 2007
BRITAIN is seeking to legally annex stretches of the south Atlantic seabed in a bid to tap gas, mineral and oil wealth, in a move that could raise tension with Argentina, a newspaper reported yesterday.
It plans to file with the United Nations (UN) authorities a claim to tens of thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean floor around the Falklands, Ascension Island and Rockall, The Guardian said.
In a bloody war 25 years ago, British forces expelled Argentine invasion forces from the Falkland Islands, which is 13,000km from Britain. Argentina claims the Falklands, or Malvinas, as their own.
The British government is trying to speed up the application process with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf ahead of an international deadline in May 2009, the newspaper said.
In a novel legal approach, any state can use detailed geological and geophysical surveys to demarcate a new "continental shelf outer limit" that can extend up to 563km from its shoreline, The Guardian said.
The British government has collected data for most of what it is submitting, it added.
Chris Carleton, head of the law of the sea division at the UK Hydrographic Office, said preliminary talks on Rockall are due to be held next week. AFP
It plans to file with the United Nations (UN) authorities a claim to tens of thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean floor around the Falklands, Ascension Island and Rockall, The Guardian said.
In a bloody war 25 years ago, British forces expelled Argentine invasion forces from the Falkland Islands, which is 13,000km from Britain. Argentina claims the Falklands, or Malvinas, as their own.
The British government is trying to speed up the application process with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf ahead of an international deadline in May 2009, the newspaper said.
In a novel legal approach, any state can use detailed geological and geophysical surveys to demarcate a new "continental shelf outer limit" that can extend up to 563km from its shoreline, The Guardian said.
The British government has collected data for most of what it is submitting, it added.
Chris Carleton, head of the law of the sea division at the UK Hydrographic Office, said preliminary talks on Rockall are due to be held next week. AFP
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