The melting of the ice pack is opening up vast reserves of offshore oil and gas, new shipping routes and fishing grounds, according to experts at the World Economic Forum.

But the scramble for Arctic wealth is complicated by the lack of agreement on which countries have legal claim to the territory, as well as border disputes, including those between Russia and the US.

Eight countries — the US, Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland — have claims to the Arctic, while resource-hungry China has also started showing interest. Mounting tension over the opening up of the high north boiled over this week when Stephen Harper, Canada’s Prime Minister, hit back at criticism from the US over his plans to spend $5.3 billion (£2.58 billion) developing his country’s forbidding Arctic coast, increasing its military presence and buying three new icebreakers.

“I’ve been very clear that we have significant plans for national defence and for defence of our sovereignty, including Arctic sovereignty,” he said.

George Newton, the chairman of the US Arctic Research Commission, told delegates at the conference of business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, that temperatures in the Arctic were expected to rise 5.5C (41.9F) in the next 100 years, and that last year the Arctic ice sheet was smaller than ever.

“When we’ve been talking about climate change it’s with concern, but we’re talking about opportunity,” he said.

Helge Lund, the president of Statoil, Norway’s state oil company, said that a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil reserves, 375 billion barrels, lies under the Arctic Ocean. “It will never replace the Middle East but it has the potential to be a good supplement,” he said.

A senior EU official said the prospect was interesting because “we need more diversification of supplies”. Much of the oil and gas is thought to be below the Barents Sea north of Norway and Russia, where Statoil has set up the Snow White project, which operates below the sea surface and extracts gas for export to the US.

Development of the area is complicated by border disputes between Norway and Russia that have been going on for 35 years. The retreating icepack is also opening up the fabled North West passage, meaning that ships will be able to sail through the Arctic Ocean from the east coast of North America to the west coast and beyond far more quickly. Another sea route that is being opened up is the Northern route just north of the coast of Siberia, allowing ships to sail direct from Northern Europe to North East Asia. The warming Arctic Ocean is also opening up new fishing grounds, particularly around the Bering Strait.

Under the Law of the Sea, countries can claim up to 200 miles of sea from their coasts, as well as resources below the coastal continental shelf. However, the US has not yet signed the Law and its application is hampered by border disputes.

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