ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka is readying a scientific team to substantiate its claim under international law for a larger area of the Bay of Bengal seabed, potentially rich with mineral and hydrocarbon resources, parts of which have overlapping claims.
The claims will be examined by the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, the United Nations scientific body which evaluates submissions by member states, officials said.
No formal objections have yet been made by other states with overlapping claims under the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention although Bangladesh reportedly is preparing to oppose Sri Lanka’s claim.
“In the queue of claims by states in the northern Bay of Bengal area, Myanmar is first followed by Sri Lanka,” said Chris Dharmakirti, outgoing chairman of the National Ocean Affairs Committee (NOAC), which submitted the island’s claim to the UN.
This would be followed by claims by India, Maldives and Bangladesh.
Seabed entitlement
Dharmakirti told EconomyNext.com the UN body would first need to examine Sri Lanka’s claim and those of neighbouring countries and determine the entitlement of the claimed areas.
“Once the entitlement to the claimed area is accepted and recognised by the UN then the countries that would have overlapping areas have a UN-accepted basis to enter into negotiations bilaterally or even multilaterally.”
There are overlapping claims between Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar, Bangladesh and the Maldives.
Under the UN Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS) a country can have continental shelf rights up to 350 nautical miles or 100 nautical miles from the 2,500 metres depth, whichever is higher.
Image of Indian Ocean seafloor (Source-NOAC)
Sri Lanka’s seabed claim has been made under a special provision known as the Statement of Understanding in the UNCLOS which she lobbied for when the law was being prepared that allows her to make a claim based on the narrowness of the island’s continental shelf.
Although no formal objections against Sri Lanka’s claim have been lodged with the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), Bangladesh in 2010 submitted a ‘note verbale’, a diplomatic communication, where they reserved the right to do so.
Overlapping claims
The Dhaka Tribune recently quoted Bangladeshi foreign ministry officials as saying Dhaka objects to Sri Lanka’s claim for an extended continental shelf beyond 350 nautical miles from its coast baseline on the grounds that it overlaps her own claim,
Dharmakirti said there are two ways to resolve overlapping claims to the seabed in what’s known as the ‘Bengal Fan’, whose thick sedimentary deposits are believed to have big hydrocarbon and mineral resources.
“The preferred approach for Sri Lanka, and the logical one, is to have joint ownership of the overlapping area,” said Dharmakirti.
“Doing so means the total resources in that space are exploited fully by both countries in an equitable manner.”
The less preferred option is to bilaterally negotiate and draw boundaries separating the overlapping area into halves.
“However, that approach is not prudent as the economic value of the seabed resources can vary depending on the size of the deposit in each area,” said Dharmakirti, who is also in charge of the oceanic economic resource assessment under the ‘Neela Haritha’ (‘Blue-Green’) economic scoping study.
The ‘Blue-Green’ economic scoping study by the National Secretariat for Ocean Economic Affairs is being conducted jointly by the ministry of environment and the ministry of primary industries to identify opportunities in the offshore sector.
It is part of commitments made to the UN by President Maithripala Sirisena, who is also environment minister, to uphold sustainable development practices.
Riches of the deep
The northern part of the Bay of Bengal, which has deep sediment deposits reaching down to 20km, is one of the largest such resources still untapped in the world and yet out of reach given today’s technology and costs.
Dharmakirti said the resources were deeper than currently economically viable oil or gas exploration depth levels.
Most offshore oil and gas deposits now being mined are at shallower depths, of less than four kilometres.
“But if the price of oil reaches a point higher than 120 US dollars a barrel, these deposits become viable,” said Dharmakirti.
“Although oil prices are currently depressed, in future if prices rise again, these resources in the deep sea become viable in the same way shale oil extraction became viable when oil prices were higher than 100 dollars a barrel.”
New gold rush
The race for minerals in the seafloor, seen as the next frontier of exploration, as difficult as space, has already begun and been likened to a new ‘gold rush’.
The International Seabed Authority, another UN body, in charge of the seabed outside national jurisdictions, is evaluating applications from countries like China, Japan and India to mine for minerals in the southwest Indian Ocean.
They are looking to extract a range of minerals like gold, zinc and copper available on the seabed which are needed for modern hi-tech industries like electronics, automobiles and clean energy.
Bulk Cutter machine to be used by Nautilus Minerals for mining in the Pacific Ocean. (Source – Nautilus Minerals)
The world’s first commercial mining project to extract high-grade seafloor copper and gold, known as Solwara 1, by Canadian miner Nautilus Minerals, is set to begin off Papua New Guinea in 2017.
Sri Lanka’s seabed claim was originally to have been taken up only after 2028 as the CLCS, which used to meet only six weeks in a year, had many claims to evaluate.
But after painstaking lobbying by Dharmakirti of all signatories to the convention, the UN allocated more resources to the scientific body enabling it to meet for 26 weeks, and bring forward the date for considering the island’s claim to after 2018.
“Now the submission is close to the point of being called by the UN for examination,” Dharmakirti explained. “It is now between our scientific team that prepared the submission and UN scientific panel to decide the validity of the data.”
Dharmakirti said coastal states with overlapping seabed claims under UNCLOS must realise that it is an economic resource each is after.
“Coming to a common understanding and agreement to operate on a shared output basis is better as concession licenses can stipulate revenue split between countries that own overlapping areas.”
(Colombo/April 22 2016)