Greenland tempers expectations over American oil drilling plans

A senior Greenlandic official has moved to dampen speculation that American oil company Greenland Energy is about to begin drilling for oil in East Greenland, in what would be the country’s first oil drilling site.

The company, led by American businessman Robert B. Price, has applied to begin exploratory work in Jameson Land, near the remote settlement of Ittoqqortoormiit. But Jørgen Hammeken-Holm, head of Greenland’s department for business and natural resources, told public broadcaster KNR that the application covers only preliminary geological surveys, not oil drilling.

The clarification follows reports by investigative outlet Danwatch in April that the company planned to ship drilling equipment to Canada in September and begin test drilling in October and November. Hammeken-Holm said the actual application, received about two weeks ago, painted a different picture than the press coverage had suggested.

The project sits awkwardly alongside Greenland’s own energy policy. In 2021, the government banned new oil and gas exploration licenses, citing climate objectives and environmental risk, with the aim of running the country on 100 percent clean energy by 2030. The Jameson Land licenses are exempt because they were granted before the moratorium, in 2014, and remain legally binding for another decade under their original terms. Hammeken-Holm has said the ban does not affect the company, which is free to explore and, if it complies with all conditions, to extract any oil it finds.

The request relates to the first phases of that exploration license. Only in its third and final phase would actual oil drilling take place. Several major hurdles remain, including environmental and social impact assessments, the former typically taking around two years, plus public consultations in Ittoqqortoormiit.

That sober assessment stands in sharp contrast to claims from Washington. Trump’s special envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, claimed in a Fox News interview in May that the island could be exporting two million barrels of oil a day and have production running within about 10 months, despite Greenland having no oil production, no export infrastructure and no commercial barrel ever pumped from the island.

The company has previously said it hopes to find some 13 billion barrels of oil in the region.