Largest oil deposits in Arctic are currently off the coast of Russia

The largest deposits are found in the Arctic off the coast of Russia. The Russian state-controlled oil company Gazprom has approximately 113 trillion cubic feet of gas already under development in the fields it owns in the Barents Sea. The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources calculates that the territory claimed by Moscow could contain as much as 586 billion barrels of oil -- although these deposits are unproven. By comparison, all of Saudi Arabia's current proven oil reserves -- which admittedly exclude unexplored and speculative resources -- amount to only 260 billion barrels. The U.S. Geological Survey is just now launching the first comprehensive study of the Arctic's resources. The first areas to be studied are the 193,000-square-mile East Greenland Rift Basins. According to initial seismic readings, they could contain 9 billion barrels of oil and 86 trillion cubic feet of gas. Altogether, the Alaskan Arctic coast appears to hold at least 27 billion barrels of oil.