By LAUREN KRUGEL, THE CANADIAN PRESS
February 25, 2008

CALGARY _ The handful of countries that abut the north pole are not the only ones vying for the vast oil and resources believed to lie in the Arctic, University of Calgary political scientist Rob Huebert says.

China is "the new kid on the block when it comes to Arctic energy," Huebert told a natural gas conference in Calgary on Monday.

"One of the more embarrassing facts is, as Canadians, we have to recognize that the Chinese now have a more substantial and vigorous scientific program than Canada has for research in polar regions," he said.

"The Chinese are increasingly looking for research in the Arctic and they have a very substantial base in the Antarctica."

With climate change melting the sea ice, there has been talk the fabled Northwest Passage could open up as a shipping route from Canada´s Arctic islands to the Pacific.

"One has to ask why in fact are they getting interested in the north and the answer is quite obvious: the energy supplies, both in terms of transportation and production," he said.

While it may be impossible to deliver Arctic natural gas across the pacific ocean to China now, there is new technology in the works that could make it a reality one day.

Russia is building massive duel-bowed oil tankers that are set to come into use as soon as next year. While travelling forward, the ships move as they normally would through open water. But when the vessels move backward, they can act as ice-breakers.

Construction is underway on two 70,000-tonne ships and two more 125,000 tonne ships and there are rumours that another five are on order, Huebert said.

"This is not a dream. This is not something that the Russians think is a good idea. They are building these," he said.

And South Korea´s Samsung Industries is looking into how to make these two-headed tankers capable of carrying natural gas that has been cooled into a liquid to Asian markets.

"My suspicion is that the Koreans are looking at the oil as their test bed and they will then be seeing how successful that is and then be applying the LNG component in this process," Huebert said.

The whole idea behind Samsung´s planned ships is to get rid of the need for pipelines, the traditional way of transporting natural gas.

While climate change could making maritime transport easier, it is wreaking havoc on land transportation systems, Huebert said.

"Everybody thinks climate change means greater accessibility in the north, full stop," he said.

"But anyone that operates on land bases in the Arctic will tell you that a melting Arctic is doing horrors for their land transportation systems. The ice roads are melting and the permafrost of the existing roads is collapsing."

Efforts to move the huge reserves of Arctic natural gas south to the U.S. market via pipeline have long been beset by ballooning costs and reams of regulatory red tape. Construction on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline, for example, has been stalled for decades, although there have been reports in recent months that an agreement to jump-start the process could be close at hand.

Doug Matthews, who used to direct the Northwest Territories´ minerals and oil and gas division, said MacKenzie is just the latest in a litany of stalled pipeline projects.

In a talk entitled "Another Bloody Northern Pipeline!" he painted a bleak picture of the prospects of ever moving Northern natural gas south.

"The idea of moving natural gas is really very very simple," he said.

"In the present case, however, it´s all messed up. In northern Canada you have the producers, but no pipeline, while in Alaska, you have a pipeline and no producers. And into this mess steps the government."

But he said the idea of moving natural gas by ship might be a hard sell, too.

"There are big tanker issues in the North. People take that sort of thing very seriously up there as we´ve seen in some of the environmental hearings."