--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., "Martin Pratt" <m.a.pratt@d...> wrote:
> before anyone gets too excited, I should point out that there
> is a known dispute between Romania and Ukraine over whether Zmeinyy
> (Serpent's) Island should be allowed to influence the alignment of
the
> Romania-Ukraine boundary. After a long-running dispute Romania
finally
> recognised Ukrainian sovereignty over this small, uninhabited
island in
> 1997, but it has subsequently argued that it should be ignored for
> delimitation purposes. The area around the island has significant
> hydrocarbon potential and it seems unlikely that the two sides will
find
> a mutually acceptable solution in the near future. Even if they do,
I
> suspect that it will involve a compromise which would probably
preclude
> the possibility of a maritime quadripoint....
>
> m a r t i n
Some little news items I found in Russian (I've translated it for
you):
"Neftegaz Ukrainy" digs in at Zmeinyj (April 5 of this year)
NAK "Neftegaz Ukrainy" has started to drill its first oil well on the
Black sea shelf near Zmeinyj island. This was reported to journalists
by the head of "Neftegaz" Vadim Kopylov, according to Ukrnews. "We
are drilling in the area of Zmeinyj island. This is financed by the
own funds of "Neftegaz Ukrainy", he said. According to V.
Kopylov, "Neftegaz" plans to step up activity on the Black sea shelf,
because it reckons it to be one of the areas that have the most
perspective regarding oil and gaz production.
The precise delimitation of the boundaries around Zmeinyj island is
the subject of a dispute of many years between the Ukraine and
Romania. At present, the oil production on the Black sea shelf is
done by the company "C^ernomorneftegaz". The Ukraine produces in
total appr. 4 million tons of oil per year, which is 15% of its
needs, acc. to the Internet magazine "Forum"
(
http://cyborg.liga.kiev.ua/lenta/get.html?id=11714 )
July 17 of this year:
The foreign office of the Ukraine denies information, which has
appeared in Romanian media, that the Ukraine alledgedly is in
violation of the existing Ukrainian-Romanian international treaty by
drilling in the area of Zmeinyj island. This was said today on a
briefing by the acting head of the foreign office press service
Sergej Borodenkov. The Ukrainian company "C^ernomorneftegaz" is
indeed doing investigating drilling in the area of Zmeinyj island
with the goal of investigating the biological structure of the sea
floor. "But this kind of activity falls under the term "exploitation
of mineral resources", which is used in a point of an additional
agreement to the basic political treaty", he underlined.
(
http://www.rclassic.dp.ua/news.html )
BTW the letter c^ is a c + caron, pronounced ch. I don't think I'm
improving by depriving people of their just portion of diacritics...)
Peter S.