The melting of the sea-ice will gradually open the sea lanes through the Arctic. Extensive exploitation of energy resources may also be possible. According to a new study by the Swedish Defence Research Agency, FOI, these developments will be one part of the transformation of the region.

According to the study Oil and Gas in a New Arctic, the exploitation of energy resources will be the most tangible transformation. Arctic oil is estimated to be a smaller proportion of the “still undiscovered” global resources, whereas estimates of natural gas indicate that it may comprise as much as one third. New opportunities for transportation will connect the Arctic more strongly to issues and trends that affect other parts of the word.

“Not since trade begun to become global during the 16th century has there been a direct sea-route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. But soon there will be several,” says FOI analyst Niklas Granholm.

In addition to the energy issue, climate change, military strategy and overlapping territorial claims, are parts of a development that complicates the analysis. The different factors develop according to their own inner logic and pace. How they interact will be hard to foresee.

New technologies for the extraction of shale gas will depress the prices of natural gas, a development that currently complicates Russia’s investments in Arctic resource extraction. It has far-reaching plans for energy exports from the Arctic. The country has also become more active militarily in the Barents Sea and the Kola Peninsula.
 
The five coastal states of the Arctic Ocean (the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Russia) are all in the process of defining their national interests regarding these developments.  The five countries’ competing economic, political and military aspirations are shaping the region’s future with a mixture of sovereignty assertion and efforts at multilateral cooperation.

The extraction of energy resources have already begun and it will give the region a greater geopolitical importance than ever before. The Arctic will become more clearly linked into developments in the rest of the world. The region will no longer be exclusively an issue for the states in the region. The interest in the Arctic is on the increase, not only from the Arctic states, but also from external state actors in Europe and Asia, as well as the European Union and NATO.