Mounting tension in Falklands oil row

Tensions between the UK and Argentina mounted today as a British oil rig began drilling off the Falkland Islands.

Defence Minister Bill Rammell said the UK government will take “whatever steps are necessary” to protect the islands, which had a “legitimate right” to develop an oil industry within its waters.

British exploration company Desire Petroleum’s platform Ocean Guardian has been towed 8,000 miles from Scotland to the south Atlantic isles for the exploration.

Argentina has formally objected to the move and tightened shipping regulations in the region.

At question time in the Commons today, Mr Rammell said: “There has been no change whatsoever to our policy and we have no doubt whatsoever about the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, and no change in our support to their legitimate right to develop a hydrocarbon industry within its waters.

“We do, we have, and we will take whatever steps are necessary to protect the Falkland Islands and our counterparts in Argentina are aware of that.”

Mr Rammell pledged to protect the islands and added: “We do continue to have a bilateral relationship and we use every effort to get those messages across.”

Desire Petroleum said in a statement: “The well is being drilled to an estimated target depth of circa 3,500 metres (11,500 feet).

“Drilling operations are expected to take approximately 30 days.”

A spokesman said the rig was sitting “firmly inside UK waters”.

The company is operating around 60 miles north of the main archipelago, where it estimates there are 3.5 billion barrels of recoverable oil as well as nine trillion cubic feet of gas.

Argentina’s president Cristina Fernandez maintains The Falklands – coveted as Las Malvinas by Buenos Aires – are occupied by Britain illegally.

She also said the UK had failed to comply with United Nations resolutions requiring negotiations on their future.

The South American nation is lobbying countries at the Rio Group summit in Cancun next week to condemn what she called Britain’s “unilateral and illegal” exploration in the islands.

Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana is also due to travel to the US for a meeting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

One estimate has put the amount of oil beneath the seabed around the Falklands at 60 billion barrels.

Robert Munks, Americas analyst with IHS Jane’s, told BBC television: “Sixty billion barrels is a large amount. It’s as large as a large field in Saudi Arabia. But that is only one estimate of several estimates... I should underline of course that there could be nothing there at all. This is all speculative guesswork.”

On Friday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday pledged his support for Argentina, saying Britain is “violating international law”.

He said: “Get out of there, give the Malvinas back to the Argentine people. Enough already with the empire.”

Argentina invaded the Falklands in 1982, before a UK taskforce made up of some 100 ships seized them back in a war which claimed the lives of 255 British servicemen and women and more than 600 Argentinians.

There have been fears expressed that Britain would not be able to mount an operation on the scale of the one seen in 1982 if military action was again needed.

Even if commercially viable amounts are found, it is expected to take many years before the oil production starts.

Last week the row between Britain and Argentina flared up ahead of the drilling operation, thanks to President Fernandez’s decree requiring that any boat travelling to or from the islands get prior permission from her country – a requirement Britain told captains to ignore.

But Prime Minister Gordon Brown backed the drilling operation, saying the UK was “perfectly within our rights to do this”.