WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Arctic Circle holds an estimated 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil, enough supply to meet current world demand for almost three years, the U.S. Geological Survey forecast on Wednesday.
The agency's forecast comes as Russia is competing with Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States to grab a chunk of the Arctic's huge energy resources as the area becomes more accessible due to global warming that is melting the region's ice.
on barrels a day for almost three years.

By Joe Carroll July 23 (Bloomberg) - The Arctic may hold 90 billion barrels of oil, more than all the known reserves of Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Mexico combined, and enough to supply U.S. demand for 12 years, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
One-third of the undiscovered oil is in Alaskan territory, the agency found in a study released today. By contrast, a geologic formation beneath the North Pole claimed by Russian scientists last year probably holds just 1.2 percent of the Arctic's crude, the U.S. report showed.
nsive Arctic continental shelves may constitute the geographically largest unexplored prospective area for petroleum remaining on Earth.''

The US Geological Survey has completed the first publicly available assessment of the Arctic in its entirety to estimate how much of the world's