ST.PETERSBURG, October 29 (RIA Novosti) - The expedition of the Russian research vessel Akademik Fyodorov has completed all the scheduled research in Arctic, allowing Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources to file a submission on Arctic shelf borders expansion to UN in spring 2015, the ministry's head stated Wednesday.
"This was a much anticipated day for us, preceded by great amount of work, and of course the work of the geologists, who are continuing working on preparing our application for the Arctic shelf expansion," Sergey Donskoy told journalists.
The minister said that Russia will file its application to the United Nations in the spring of 2015.
"We lay our claim on 1.2 million square kilometers [more than 463,000 square miles] of the Arctic Ocean. That is a big increase to country's territory, that's why we call this application an application for the future – an application for the future sustainable development of our country," Donskoy said.
Donskoy referred to the research, conducted by Akademik Fyodorov on the North Pole as unique work. "Our main goal there was to conduct seismic exploration and we managed to achieve it. The seismic exploration of this kind was conducted for the first time in the world," the minister explained.
Russia has been laying its claims on vast area of resources-rich Arctic shelf, including the Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges since 2001. In order for Russia's ownership to be recognized by the UN, it must be proven that those areas are a continuation of the continental crust. According to the Natural Resources Ministry, such a recognition would bring Russia five billion tons of reference fuel.
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