gentle reminder, am anxiously waiting for your treaties on the sino-russian conspiracy w/r to btc that was invented by satoshi per your read of history-doesn't-matter olive vs salad
even as bloomberg tees up a new one that may actually have some basis but hardly a conspiracy as opposed to usual civilisation-building global / cislunar infrastructure rollout akin to what china tried to help brazil w/ for deep sea something awhile ago
bloomberg.com
Russian Ambition Tops World-Changing Arctic To-Do List
As the Arctic Circle’s ice melts away, people of the High North feel their top-of-the-world economy heating up. Gold mines, roads and a full spectrum of energy projects dot the horizon—with Russia leading the way and other Arctic countries scrambling to catch up. There’s much to do, and not enough capital to go around. That means countries with deep pockets, deep ambition and no Arctic coastline—namely China—can get a seat at the table, too.
Investing at the top of the world isn’t easy. The remoteness of the region, and a lack of basic infrastructure means the Arctic is simply not wired into the rest of the global trade system. Arctic financial data are scarce. But the global asset manager Guggenheim Partners has shed some light on what’s likely to come next in the Arctic. They’ve spent the last seven years studying the region and the last three amassing a database of 900 planned, in-process, finished, cancelled and desired Arctic infrastructure projects.
Some of the projects reflect grand ambitions to upgrade national, industrial and social systems. Others are smaller scale and meant to connect remote places into larger patterns of trade. Taken together, they would require as much as $1 trillion in investments.
So far, Russia's oil-and-gas money has underwritten a lot of the work, giving President Vladimir Putin a leg up as changing conditions grant access to new riches. Russia has an overwhelming lead over its neighbors with nearly 250 potential projects. Finland, the U.S. and Canada follow in the number of wish-list items. Underscoring many of these initiatives is careful maneuvering by China—whether through Arctic trade deals or strategic financing.
Who can build their projects first, and who funds them, will go a long way in determining which countries are best positioned to exert economic dominance in the region over the coming decades.
Development in the ArcticFrom roads to new mines, these are some of the largest projects on each country’s wish list, according to Guggenheim Partners:
Transportation Fossil Fuel Energy Renewable/Nuclear Energy Mining Power Economic Civic
Source: Guggenheim Partners
Mining, road-building, renewable energy and service businesses make up the greatest number of individual projects in the infrastructure inventory by sector, at least in part because most of those are smaller-scale items that all communities need.
Oil and gas production projects require the biggest overall potential investment—as much as $200 billion—or more than the next three categories combined (mining, renewable energy and railroads). The Arctic Circle may hold more than a fifth of the world's undiscovered oil and gas, most of it offshore. However, with oil around $60 a barrel, not all will be worth pursuing.
There’s at least one big reason why Russia is poised to remain a dominant player in the region: the country is rich in natural resources, a disproportionate amount of which lie in the Arctic. That’s why the north already makes up about 20 percent of the Russian gross domestic product, and Russia contributes about two-thirds to the overall Arctic economy. President Vladimir Putin has presided over financially and technically ambitious energy exploration goals. He officially opened a $27 billion liquefied natural gas plant, called Yamal LNG, the first week of December on northwestern Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula.
Russia’s Arctic list is heavily populated with hydrocarbon projects, from new or expanded gas fields to refineries and the ports, pipelines and rail needed to move the product.
Drilling opportunities are expanding in the U.S. The Trump administration is preparing to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge along with the Chukchi and Beaufort seas to drilling. The administration in November issued the Italian company Eni SpA in November an exploratory-drilling permit, the first since Royal Dutch Shell pulled out of its $7 billion Chukchi Sea venture in 2015Coal mine in Svalbard, Norway.
Footage: Elise Coker and Flemming Laursen
Developing Arctic hydrocarbons is not universally considered a safe or moral decision, given the treacherous working conditions and the overdetermined dangers of further carbon dioxide pollution. Norway is out ahead of its northern neighbors in thinking through this complexity. Amidst public concern about climate change, its $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund—built by oil profits— may divest from fossil fuels. However, its state oil company has been moving ahead on new exploration despite obstacles.
The Arctic also offers hydropower, wind, geothermal, tidal and solar energy. There’s even a floating Russian nuclear power generator for Bilibino, an eastern town that is shuttering aging reactors—the world’s most northern. Miners have long desired to extract Arctic gold, silver, graphite, nickel, copper, titanium, iron, lead, coal, diamond, uranium and the rare earth metals critical to high-tech devices. And there are Arctic power grids, railroads, highways, subsea telecom fiber, satellites and aviation corridors to pin down so that everyone and everything can get anywhere anytime.
The energy and minerals that feed industry are paralleled by a volume of fish that can potentially feed people for decades, or, if caught sustainably, forever. Some species are already following warmer waters northward. It’s a complex picture, though: Changing temperature, salinity, sea-ice behavior and ocean acidification all have an effect on fish populations, and scientists have yet to draw firm conclusions about what future Arctic fisheries may look like. Accordingly, nine countries and the European Union decided in November to leave international waters at the top of the world in its under-fished state for at least 16 years. The pause is intended to allow scientists to better understand the regions fisheries and how they may change as sea ice vanishes.
Building the Arctic Infrastructure Inventory has led Scott Minerd, Guggenheim Partners’ global chief investment officer, to a counterintuitive conclusion: The firm is looking past its Arctic inventory, as much as it’s looking at it.
Oil rig in the Beaufort Sea.
Photographer: Stockbyte/Getty Images
“It’s a slow-go but it’s definitely accelerating,” Minerd said of northern investment. Updating the inventory is keeping his thought “ahead of the curve relative to most investment firms,” he said. “Most investment firms don’t even have the Arctic on their radar. Eventually they will.”
Instead of energy, bellwethers for Arctic development may include Finland's Hotel Santa Claus, Norway’s Kolos data center, which is aiming to be the world’s largest, Sweden’s NorthVolt battery plant and Finland’s North European BioTech Oy, which will make advanced ethanol and other products from forestry-industry waste, like recycled wood, sawdust.
Most tantalizing, however, for Minerd and many others, is the oft-promised, and yet never quite present, opening of ice-free shipping lanes. |
