Tensions Rise in Antarctica as Ice Miners Exceed Quotas.

Going into the first quarter of 2057, water prices have fallen from $11USD per cubic meter(July) to $7.4USD, and show no signs of stopping just yet. 

Issues began last month when an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale, shook the Australian mining operation South60’s primary site. Reports indicated that the quake was felt as far as the mining operations on the Ross ice shelf nearly 2000 km away. Given the nature of the mining sites, a great deal of ice was broken off from the surface of these sites. The increased surface area and proximity to the ocean created conditions where rapid towing was both significantly more cost-effective, and would reduce wastage due to melting. Following clean-up errors, reports of unstable safety conditions following the earthquake lead to a pause on the ice harvesting quotas agreed to by all sovereign operations operating under OAIM rules for the purposes of salvaging product going into the summer season.

Since the pause, additional mining companies have petitioned to have their quotas temporarily lifted, citing similar damage control measures. Evan Murphy, a senior administrator at South60’s Sydney office, claimed that this was only intended as a provisional measure: “July was a hard month for everyone out on that ice field, and this is a situation that no one was ready for. In the future, we can discuss alternate storage mechanisms…for now, stow and tow is the most cost-effective means we have without burning through the product.“

“Stow and tow” outputs, the industry term for the fast transit mechanism for getting ice to target markets, has been kept under quota volumes since mining stakes began to be placed in 2036. Alan Blunquist of the South Africa Drilling Corporation (SADC), had this to say: “When we first put down stakes on the Ross Shelf, we planned for some degree of on-site storage…but the transit solutions were too good at the time. Why maintain warehousing space in this climate? It was never needed until the quake. And now? We can’t ship it out fast enough.”

 Representatives from the Global Desalination Consortium (GDC) feel differently. “Now that the quotas have been lifted, it’s going to be hard for them to scale back, even with the price of fresh water tanking on the market,” a representative from the GDC office claimed. “Antarctic ice seems like a renewable resource, but its availability varies from year to year. If the desalination industry is priced out of the market, and then [the ice harvesting industry] has a bad year, then what? Countries will still need their drinking water. South60 needs to be mindful of the floodgate they’re holding open by flouting the quota system.”

Economists from the World Economic Forum echo this sense of alarm. A statement released from the World Economic Forum in Geneva states, “the situation in Antarctica is an emergency measure requiring a measured response. If water prices continue to fall on the SA3 market, however, a correction will have to be made. The impacts are already being felt across multiple sectors.”