British oil explorer Desire Petroleum said yesterday its drilling programme off the Falkland Islands will go ahead as planned, despite the Ar-gentine government’s move to restrict access.
Argentina, which claims sovereignty over the British-ruled islands, has said that ships sailing from its ports to the Falklands would need a government permit.
Semi-submersible rig Ocean Guardian is due to start exploration off the Falklands any day now for Desire. The unit was towed to the South Atlantic after leaving Invergordon in November.
The rig has been contracted from Aberdeen-based Diamond Offshore Drilling UK.
A Desire spokesman said yesterday of the Argentinian move: “This whole situation has unfortunately been anticipated for months. Desire’s logistics are unaffected.”
John Dalby, of maritime security company MRM, which provides risk assessments to shipping companies, said drilling companies could bypass Argentina and pick up bunker fuel and other resources at ports in Brazil.
Argentina’s president has issued a decree seeking to control all shipping to and from the Falklands, escalating her fight with Britain over drilling for oil and gas in the South Atlantic.
Cristina Fernandez’s order does not just stop at shipping for the oil industry – it applies to any vessel going to or from the islands, which Argentina refers to as the Malvinas.
She said Britain occupies the archipelago illegitimately and that it has failed to comply with United Nations’ resolutions requiring negotiations on its future.
The decree says ships must get permission before entering Argentine seas – and, despite Britain’s military victory in the war over the Falklands in 1982, Argentina officially considers the entire South Atlantic continental shelf to be its territory.
The decree does not say what action Argentina will take if ships do not comply and Argentine officials declined to comment beyond the wording of the decree, which was read by Ms Fernandez’s Cabinet chief at a news conference.
The UK’s Foreign Office said the decree would not affect shipping through the area. Regulation of the Argentine territorial waters was “a matter for the Argentine authorities; this does not affect Falkland Islands territorial waters, which are controlled by the islands’ authorities”, the FO said.
The archipelago was claimed by the Spanish crown and then the Argentine government until 1833, when Britain occupied it.
Argentina’s military government retook the islands by force in April 1982, provoking a war with Britain, which recovered them two months later. The war cost 649 Argentine and 258 British lives.
The British Geological Survey has estimated the Falklands area may contain up to 60billion barrels of oil.