On land, oil fields in Alaska and gas fields in northern Russia have been producing hydrocarbons on a large scale for many years, but the estimated reserves under the Arctic Ocean are much larger. At today’s prices, these reserves could be worth more than $7 trillion, according to international energy companies; factoring in the accompanying natural gas, $10 trillion would probably be a conservative figure.
北极地区巨大的石油矿产储量开发难度相比目前大大降低将是更直接的结果。阿拉斯加陆地油田和俄罗斯北部陆上天然气田大规模产出碳氢化合物已有多年，但相比北冰洋底的预测储量根本算不了什么。据国际能源企业按现价测算，上述资源可能超过7万亿美元；如果再算上伴生的天然气，那么10万亿美元或许只是比较保守的数字。