Russian Security Council Moves to Extend Arctic Seabed Claim. By Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters, September 12, 2008. "Russia must stake its claim to a slice of the Arctic's vast resources, the secretary of Russia's Security Council said on Friday at an unprecedented session of the council held on a desolate Arctic island... Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark -- which governs Greenland -- all have a shoreline within the Arctic Circle, and have a 200-mile (320-km) economic zone around the north of their coastlines. Russian officials say they are entitled to a bigger share. They base the claim on the contention that the Lomonosov ridge, a vast underwater mountain range that runs underneath the Arctic, is an extension of the Siberian continental shelf. Under the United Nations Law of the Sea treaty, any state with an Arctic coastline that wishes to stake a claim to a greater share of the Arctic must lodge its submission with the U.N.'s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Russian geologists estimate the Arctic seabed has at least 9 billion to 10 billion tonnes of fuel equivalent, about the same as Russia's total oil reserves."
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