Russia to file Arctic claim to U.N. this year: radio

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will file a claim to the gigantic mineral wealth of the Arctic seabed with the United Nations by the end of the year, Russia's natural resources minister said on Tuesday.

Russia, the world's biggest country, says a whole swathe of the Arctic seabed should belong to Moscow because the area is really an extension of the Siberian continental shelf.

Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev told the Russkaya Sluzhba Novostei radio station that Russia would submit its claim with the United Nations this year, according to a transcript of the interview supplied by his ministry.

"We can hardly start the economic exploitation of this territory, which is beyond Russia's borders, without the agreement of other countries, without the agreement of the UN," Trutnev told the radio station.

"The scientists think that the data for submitting a claim is sufficient. We will fight for Russia's right to this plot," he said, adding that the bid would be ready by the end of the year.

Russia, already the world's second biggest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, is in a race with Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States to control the giant reserves of oil, gas and precious metals that would become more accessible if global warming shrinks the ice cap.

Russian officials say the Lomonosov ridge, a vast underwater mountain range that runs underneath the Arctic, is an extension of the Siberian continental shelf.

A Russian expedition under the North Pole this August took samples of the seabed and planted a Russian flag to symbolically stake the Kremlin's claim.

Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark -- which governs Greenland -- all have a shoreline within the Arctic Circle, and have a 200-mile economic zone around the north of their coastlines.

Under the United Nations Law of the Sea treaty, any state with an Arctic coastline that wishes to stake a claim to a greater share of the Arctic must lodge its submission with the U.N.'s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

Russia lodged a claim with the UN commission in 2001. It responded a year later by recommending Russia make a revised submission with additional research.

Since then, Moscow has been attempting to gather scientific evidence to back its claim.

Russian geologists estimate the Arctic seabed has at least 9 billion to 10 billion metric tons of fuel equivalent, about the same as Russia's total oil reserves.

But Trutnev said current Russian official estimates were of up to 5 billion metric tons of hydro-carbon resources.

Asked if there was a struggle for the Arctic, he said: "More like real competition."