Danes planning to make claim on North Pole as Arctic sea ice shrinks

A leaked draft document titled Strategy for the Arctic also says Denmark’s Science Ministry has started collecting data to formally submit a claim for those areas to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf no later than 2014.

The Danish government confirmed the document, which was first obtained by Danish Radio and published online by newspaper Information, was genuine but Foreign Minister Lene Espersen said the strategy was still being reviewed and a final version was expected in June.

Russia, Norway and the United States have their own claims – sometimes competing – in a region believed to hold as much as 25 per cent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas.

Denmark has explored potential claims to areas off the semi-autonomous territory of Greenland for years but this is the first time the government has explicitly stated it would make a claim for the North Pole.

The race to secure sub-surface rights to the Arctic seabed heated up in 2007 when Russia sent two small submarines to plant a tiny national flag under the North Pole. Russia argued that an underwater ridge connected the country directly to the Pole, a claim disputed by other Arctic nations.

The 34-page Danish document said Denmark wants “to lay claim to the continental shelf in five areas around the Faeroe Islands and Greenland, including the North Pole itself.”

At least four of those areas are believed to hold oil or gas resources.