The town in the way of America’s Greenland oil push
Danwatch’s investigation into a U.S. company’s plans to drill for oil in East Greenland reached the community most affected last week, when Greenland Energy CEO Robert Price travelled to the remote hunting town of Ittoqqortoormiit. Over two days, a town that had armed itself with demands was met with a boss who had very few answers.
US oil company tries to buy Greenlanders’ acceptance — June 10
Days before Price landed, Ittoqqortoormiit’s roughly 328 residents were invited to a town hall arranged not by the Greenlandic authorities but by Greenland Energy itself. Most residents Danwatch met knew almost nothing about the oil project planned for their hunting grounds.
Left without official guidance, the local committee drew up its own list of six demands in exchange for cooperation: an expanded sports hall, a container gym, an outdoor wellness area with a heated pool, new hunting cabins, a travel fund, and a chartered helicopter flight so residents could photograph their hunting grounds before drilling destroyed them.
Per Nikolaj Bukh, a professor of economic management at Aalborg University, called the situation dramatic and said residents were effectively being bought off — a terrible offer they couldn’t refuse — faulting the authorities for abandoning an isolated community. The authorities were barely in the loop themselves: Mineral Resources Department head Jørgen Hammeken-Holm told Danwatch they hadn’t known Price was travelling to the town until Danwatch told them.
US oil boss bombarded with questions: “But if you find oil, what then?” — June 11
The meeting opened calmly, with fruit, cake, hoodies and caps laid out for the nearly 70 residents who turned up. Then the hands went up and stayed up for nearly two hours.
The question residents returned to was simple: if you find oil, what then? Each time, Price declined to say, offering only that it “could be big.” He made clear the six demands were off the table, offering instead a roughly one-million-kroner local fund and about 10 jobs tied to the winter test drilling. Asked whether the company would drill without a permit, he said no — it holds permission only to land equipment — but said he was confident the rest would follow. The Mineral Resources Department says it still cannot approve the drilling, citing missing documentation including an oil-spill response plan.
Asked whether anyone at the company had ties to the MAGA movement, a reference to Trump envoy Jeff Landry touting the project on Fox News, Price said he had no such connection. When Danwatch tried to question him afterward, he asked the journalist to switch off the camera, began photographing him instead, then left for a waiting helicopter and flew off.
“The answers they gave us were unfortunately not reassuring,” carpenter Ken Madsen said. “They say it will affect the environment, but can’t say how much or how little.”
