Antarctica is the only continent on Earth to have never been mined of course like anywhere else on Earth there are valuable metals and resources under the surface here but no one has dug them up yet is it because Antarctica is a frozen desert covered in ice yes but it's also because of the Antarctic treaty an international agreement that keeps the continent reserved for peaceful civilian and scientific use specifically article 7 under the Madrid protocol of the treaty bans any activity relating to Mineral Resources other than scientific research south of the 6th parallel South this circle
encompassing the whole Antarctic this ban is not law though Antarctica might be the only continent which hasn't been mined but it's also the only continent without a government and the ability to maintain its rule of law nobody owns the continent who's going to govern it only up to 5,000 people people live there at a time but none permanently with the population more than having during their brutal and dark Winters and their split up into small research stations representing 32 different countries an individual station may be able to maintain governance and order but across the continent
it's all just a gentleman's agreement not to use your bases for military or prospecting purposes originally the continent was a free-for-all anyone could come in and set up base here but the treacherous Waters icy and rugged landscape and awful temperatures deterred most it wasn't until the 1950s when Antarctica really experienced its first boom in stations and population sure Seven Nations had a legal claim over the continent Norway Australia France in the middle of that New Zealand Chile Argentina and Britain overlapping their claims but the US and the Soviets had also sprinkled the continent with researchers
and stations in part for strategic reasons in part to flex their scientific power over the other one of the major reasons the US under the Eisenhower Administration pushed so hard to freeze Antarctic claims was to stop the Soviets from entering their own claim and putting who knows what there probably a weather balloon station or something but it was also a materialized extension of what I'd call post-war liberal internationalist ideas you know the idea that we should solve conflict through diplomacy rather than war that we should strive to uphold imagined human rights and the rule of
law that we should stand against authoritarianism everywhere no matter how much of a wasteland the area was Big D was into all these ideas and he personally pushed hard to keep the continent peaceful these Seven Nations with a claim as well as the US Soviets Japan Belgium and South Africa met over 40 times to to reach an agreement with bitter disputes between those who wanted sovereignty over their claims and those who were fine with International governance the treaty was presented in December 1959 and eventually ratified 2 years later with Chile and Argentina being the last
to sign under it there would be no Acts or activities for asserting supporting or denying a claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica all claims would be effectively frozen forever that didn't stop little petty squabbles over who really owned the ice though many nations with claims were not happy to effectively give up a chunk of their territory taking what could be their future resources or even their future cities some countries like Australia and New Zealand tried to legitimize their claims through mapping efforts others did it through naming like with the elegantly named Soviet Plateau you can
guess who came up with that one almost all shipped in researchers for some good old scientific Prestige some shipped in tourists but that became very unfashionable when a New Zealander plane crashed into Mount arabus killing everyone on board uh some use special stamps the US built a nuclear reactor at McMurdo Station and the UK even had a plan to detonate a hydrogen bomb in the middle of the ice all to prove their claim over the continent by far Argentina did the most who were the saltiest about the natural extension of their territory being taken away
by the mainly first world treaty signers Argentine Antarctica is officially part of one of their provinces tiarra del Fuego in Hope Bay where Argentina and Britain had exchanged gunfire in 1952 a plaque is set up to commemorate the sacrifice of Argentina and the permanence of their claim they set up schools and mock colonies some presidents have flown out to give a symbolic speech and a base Commander's pregnant wife was even flown out to give birth to the world's first Native antarctican amelo Palma in 1978 of course one of the best ways to protect your claim
was to survey the land specifically what's underneath the land geological research was not only great for scientists in the world's largest untouched Nature Reserve but it was a strong incentive for countries to want to fortify their presence for example New Zealand had attempted to survey the Ross dependency in the late 50s but found nothing of note the 1973 oil crisis when OPEC countries boycotted selling oil to various Western Nations only sparked speculation about where to acquire a stable Supply during the 70s the US drilled over 50 sites to see if they could secure that Supply
on this continent the USS glomar Challenger and Japan's Haku Maru had investigated for petroleum deposits here in the ' 80s and 9s in the tiny but metalr larsman Hills there are four research stations and on the Rock exposed even more metal Rich Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetland Islands there are 40 stations of 18 different nations representing over half of all bases on the continent as Antarctica grew in activity the treaty was signed by over 50 Nations some for research some in an attempt to secure mineral rights but who had the right to profit if a
deposit was provable to be extracted was it whoever dug it up was it who found it first was it whose's ever claim it was in various New Zealander mining companies lobbied hard for exclusive rights if they were to Prospect and extract the minerals themselves but smaller countries and non-treaty countries called on the larger powers to share any potential discovery of resources for the benefit of all you could extract minerals no problem from Antarctica but at least use them to equalize our natural metallic inequalities they argued and in 1988 the convention on the regulation of Antarctic
mineral resources activities the crra took place in Wellington it was not a dialogue to prevent mining but to welcome it it laid out a framework as to how various Nations could explore and exploit the continent in a way that didn't damage the environment and to how those profits would be divided between minor and claimant Nation they figured if the urge was too high it's better to regulate mining rather than try to ban it outright however the governments of Australia and France refused to sign the convention and public pressure made many reconsider instead many forces wanted
peace and to preserve the nature of the continent the Exon Valdes spill in 1989 the largest oil spill at the time certainly didn't hurt their case instead what was signed was the protocol on Environmental Protection the Madrid protocol this was to ban mining keep Antarctica clean and to preserve the continent for peace with various rules and protocols if you ever go there and have to pee inside of a bottle this protocol is why and when it took effect in 1998 all all mineral activities and Mining were banned in Antarctica but nowadays the treaty is under
attack or at least questioning this comes as Russia has found over 500 billion barrels of oil underneath the Antarctic Peninsula 500 billion that's almost twice Saudi reserves and over 14 times what the Americans currently have at $100 a barrel that could be $50 trillion of oil sitting underneath Antarctica that's an insane amount of money and an insane amount of oil Antarctica is also known to have deposits of coal in the trans Antarctic mountains iron in the Prince Charles mountains gold and silver in Queen Ma and Queen Elizabeth land Boron phosphorus and uranium in the larsman
hills and poery copper the cheapest type on the peninsula yet Russia is the only known Nation to explicit survey for minerals under the Madrid protocol a 2021 report by the Russian government lays out a plan to observe Antarctica's geological structures the thickness of the sedimentary cover and to create a comprehensive information base on the mineral potential by 2030 another report states the purpose as geopolitical in its nature it was the state-owned company Rosio who found this massive oil deposit not one that was privately owned looking for profit of course all of this is banned under
the Antarctic treaty you cannot Prospect for minerals but you can research by laundering mineral exploration in with geological research Russia is able to just skirt the line to the point where no one really calls them out for it after all hydrocarbons are a natural part of the environment but the issue is also boiling up at a time when Russia has done some objectively worse things so prospecting for oil doesn't really top the charts on why others might not be too happy with them does that mean they can sneak ahead and extract no what these news
agencies and their high tech visuals fail to understand is that Russia did not find 500 billion barrels of oil well yes they found it it's there somewhere below the surface but they didn't really find it it doesn't matter if the oil is there or not it matters if it's usable ice covers 98% of Antarctica only these little sections across the continent are rock exposed which would amount to an area only about as large as Colorado spread across a glacier about this size Antarctica is also notoriously hard to work in not only do blizzards regularly sweep
over the continent but icebergs create an unstable shipping environment the ice can get up to 5 km thick in some portions and that ice moves as much as 10 to 20 m a year in the center and up to 1,500 m a year on the coasts which would damage any potential Wells or Minds risking a massive spill it also lacks a stable population and Workforce meaning anyone coming here to mine needs to be paid top dollar for their work the continent is over 3,000 kilm from Buenos Aries and over 4,000 from Cape Town so transporting
goods and people is not straightforward and without the infrastructure already in place miners would need a hefty investment to even start extraction simply put if the price of oil is too low nobody is going to mine there out of basic economic sense the cost would simply be too high if oil isn't consistently getting $150 Poss possibly 200 a barrel there's no point even trying to mine here and this is where these reports on Russia's oil Discovery fail extracting Antarctic oil is illegal and although that may not deter the Russian Fleet who often smuggle goods and
fish in baned areas with their off-the grid Shadow Fleet extracting is also uneconomical and therefore Russia did not find a 500 billion Barrel Reserve but a 500 billion Barrel deposit a mineral deposit is something that's in the ground a reserve is something that could be used but we just haven't got around to yet it makes no sense to compare Antarctica's oil deposit to Saudi Arabia's oil reserves because the ones down here are locked out of production through their high costs look at this graph of America's crude oil reserves over time did the amount of oil
they had suddenly Fall by a fifth in 2020 no the price of oil fell from $70 a barrel to around 40 making that expensive fifth not worth the cost to extract any longer did their oil supply suddenly double in a decade and a half kind of as new technology made it possible to Frack for Shale oil but the amount in the ground didn't change at all we just don't have the current technology or prices to make mining for Antarctic oil possible right now a 1992 study by John Kingston at the US Geological Survey estimated that
the amount of oil reserves Antarctica could have are about 19 billion barrels under normal conditions or 6 billion under difficult recovery conditions that would place Antarctica in between Norway and Qatar instead of two times Saudi Arabia when counting reserves that's still a lot of oil and it still might be enough of an incentive for countries to come in and break the treaty formally the Madrid protocol does not expire but in 2048 any country will be allowed to call for a discussion to amend its rules and by a 3/4 majority vote they could be changed or
even scrapped that's only 24 years away and the conventional thinking is that there is going to be a discussion on Antarctic mining in the late 2040s now if the entire protocol and treaty will be thrown away who knows in 2016 the RW sea region was forly put under special protection the largest area where commercial fishing is banned so we're still at least trying to preserve the continent but if it were repealed what would companies and governments actually gain from these relatively small reserves and high costs to produce security and a steady supply of energy China
and India are the first and third largest importers of crude petroleum on Earth oil makes up a large portion of the electricity and chemicals that have fueled their rapid growth over the past few decades and currently China has five Antarctic research stations India has two Russia has six and America has five are these all for research or are there some ulterior motives the US and China are now in the middle of a trade War India and China are in the middle of a trade trade War Russia has been increasingly cut off from the Western World
and trade in go between countries has boomed meanwhile all major Powers have thrown out the old rules of international trade and have showered their own National companies with subsidies and tax benefits well all except Europe as trade breaks down and we move into a more Nationalist and protectionist World some countries will be willing to pay a premium to keep the raw materials in in their control instead of importing golf oil China for example may take its chances and pay the price to import its own Antarctic oil instead of India paying for Chilean copper why not
secure its own mine down south why not do this even if it means breaking trust in international systems and destroying the beauty of Antarctica the Antarctic treaty is a remnant of the liberal internationalist order that was Bor born after the second world war as the countries of the world trust each other less and less viewing trade more as a zero some game rather than one where Mutual benefit can exist it becomes much more likely that come 2048 someone is going to drill through the ice even if it does not make economic sense big oil companies
love and I mean love to Hype up stories about where the next future deposits are are if you want to hear how stories like these played a role in the ruin of a small island nation consider checking out this video I made on it thanks
