Veteran oilman Robert Value was regaled with tales of dogsledding and adventures in Greenland as a baby from his father who served as a navy weatherman there throughout World Battle II.
These tales saved the huge, icy North American territory in his thoughts till this 12 months. After a sequence of still-pending offers, Value will quickly grow to be the CEO of Texas-based Greenland Vitality, the primary publicly traded firm created to drill for oil onshore in Greenland, The primary properly is tentatively scheduled for subsequent summer time.
Pristine Greenland is probably house to one of many world’s largest oilfield reserves. However it’s additionally the sparsely populated territory that U.S. President Trump desires to annex for strategic geopolitical and navy functions—very a lot towards the desires of Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark that oversees the autonomous territory. Greenland, with its quickly melting ice sheet, is also an instance of world local weather change largely attributable to fossil fuels. And the mission is profiting from a loophole in Greenlandic legislation supposed to ban oil drilling.
“I’ve drilled for tens of millions of barrels of oil whereas drilling wildcat wells my entire life, however I’ve by no means had the chance to drill for billions of barrels of oil,” Value instructed Fortune. “It’s really a rare alternative.”
Value and govt chairman Larry Swets aren’t tone deaf. They’re aware of the political and environmental sensitivities which have thrust quiet Greenland into the headlines this 12 months. Their effort isn’t associated to American annexation, they insist, and, whereas any oil manufacturing has an environmental impression, it is a comparatively small-scale mission in jap Greenland distant from the inhabitants.
“Whatever the total political local weather on the market, I imagine that the Greenland individuals need to know whether or not or not they’ve one of many largest oilfields on the planet,” Value stated.
They hope potential traders are enthused sufficient to agree. There’s apparent danger, Swets stated, however the potential upside is large. “This isn’t only a hope and a prayer. There’s a direct hyperlink out of your capital to potential oil manufacturing, and that’s a fairly favorable risk-reward from my perspective,” Swets stated.
Value and Swets are betting their prices finally will show decrease than the business common as a result of they’re drilling old-school, typical wells that go straight down—not the trendy, complicated horizontal drilling and fracking concerned within the U.S. shale growth. Nonetheless, power analysts level to the excessive prices of organising in a brand new distant setting in harsh climate with out native infrastructure, labor, or tools. Then there are the added bills with exporting the oil and fuel—the demand is all worldwide, stated Lewis Lawrence, senior analyst with the Wooden Mackenzie power analysis agency. And it definitely doesn’t assist that the timing coincides with low oil prices amid a global glut.
“It’s stunning. It’s high-risk, high-reward,” Lawrence stated. “They have to go after huge targets. If it comes by way of, then it may very well be an thrilling mission. There should not many basins globally which might be undrilled. However historical past tells you in Greenland, primarily based on the dearth of success up to now, there’s additionally an excellent probability that it does go bust. That’s why it’s a high-risk, frontier exploration program.”
Lengthy historical past, lack of outcomes
That historical past of Greenland oil goes again greater than 50 years. Recent off the huge Prudhoe Bay oil discovery in Alaska within the late Sixties, the Atlantic Richfield Co., higher often called ARCO—later acquired by BP—recognized offshore Greenland as a prime oil prospect within the Seventies.
ARCO and others spent greater than $100 million on seismic surveying and assessments of Greenland with plans to develop oil and fuel within the territory. However, after some preliminary drilling pilot applications have been unsuccessful, goals of Greenland’s black gold fell by the wayside when the oil business infamously went bust within the ’80s.
The scientific case for exploration dates again many tens of millions of years to continental drift when Greenland was believed to be carefully linked to Norway and the British Isles. Analysis has proven that oil seepage from Greenland is corresponding to the worldwide benchmark high quality of Brent oil from Norway’s mature North Sea.
Smaller efforts popped up in Greenland through the years, however nothing got here to fruition. The UK’s Cairn Vitality—now Capricorn Vitality—deserted the latest drilling effort in 2011 after blended, principally failed outcomes.
Almost all of those initiatives have been offshore although, and Greenland Vitality is taking an onshore method. Regardless of a long time of geological research, jap Greenland’s Jameson Land Basin stays fully undrilled till probably subsequent summer time.
Value and Swets imagine Jameson may very well be the subsequent Prudhoe Bay. They acquired all of ARCO’s historic seismic surveying information for the Jameson area, which helped them hone in on particular drilling areas. Getting the grandfathered drilling licenses—emphasis on “grandfathered”—into one consolidated firm is trickier, however manageable because of a sequence of rapid-fire, convoluted offers.
Final 12 months, London-based Bluejay Mining acquired London’s White Flame Vitality, altering its title to 80 Mile to replicate the growth of the enterprise mannequin to incorporate oil and fuel.
White Flame was based over a decade in the past to probe for oil and fuel in Greenland. No improvement got here to cross, however the firm critically gained three licenses for exploration within the Jameson basin. The licenses acquired three-year extensions in 2024 previous to the 80 Mile deal.
Citing local weather change considerations and the melting ice sheet, Greenland carried out a moratorium on oil and fuel drilling in 2021—seemingly bringing all oil goals to an finish—however the authorities agreed that White Flame’s licenses have been grandfathered and remained legitimate. The federal government confirmed the legality of the licenses to Fortune, however declined interview requests.
Seeing a chance, Value began Texas-based March GL and, in April, he partnered with 80 Mile for the licenses. March GL leads the operations whereas 80 Mile retains a 30% stake within the mission.
“Now we have the one onshore licenses in all of Greenland,” Value boasted.
Because of mutual buddies at ThinkEquity, Value and Swets met early this 12 months and hit it off. Swets, who has experience with special-purpose acquisition corporations (SPACs), shaped Greenland Exploration along with his funding and service provider banking agency, FG Nexus, and agreed to merge with March GL and discover a appropriate SPAC to take the corporate public.
In September, they agreed to be acquired by a SPAC, Pelican Acquisition Corp., in a reverse merger, which can take the pending Greenland Vitality Co. public at a $215 million implied valuation when and if the deal closes.
The one downside is the continuing authorities shutdown may delay the supposed December time limit to January or so, they stated.
Is the oil truly reachable?
This month, the group started touchdown tools to start out constructing the 3-mile street from the coast to the primary properly. Highway building is anticipated to start early subsequent 12 months. Subsequent summer time, the plan is for a barge to convey over the drilling rig to start out the primary properly. A second pilot properly is scheduled for fall 2026.
The group already is contracted with oilfield companies big Halliburton, IPT Effectively Options, and Stampede Drilling.
The goal is to drill the primary properly slowly, coming into 5 totally different geologic zones and testing for oil and fuel in every of them. “As soon as we’re hopefully lucky to find an oilfield, the prices will definitely come down,” Value argued.
A 2008 U.S. Geological Survey report on jap Greenland estimated there are recoverable reserves of 31.4 billion barrels of oil equal, which may make the area one of many world’s prime oil and fuel basins.
Nonetheless, whereas close by, almost all of the estimated reserves are in offshore waters, and the estimate doesn’t rely potential volumes from the close by Jameson Land Basin. The report particularly states, “The Jameson Land Basin [was] thought of to have lower than a ten% probability of containing a technically recoverable hydrocarbon accumulation.”
Value contends the Jameson portion of the USGS report is outdate and inaccurate, pointing to a way more latest 2025 third-party evaluate from Sproule ERCE power consultants that estimates the Jameson basin may maintain 9 billion web barrels of recoverable crude oil. The brand new report contends the primary two wells, if profitable, may produce greater than 1.2 billion barrels of oil mixed, with upside of as excessive as a mixed 4 billion barrels.
“We all know the oil is there. The query is, ‘The place is it trapped?’” Value stated. “This isn’t a one in 10 shot. This can be a very excessive share of discovering what may very well be one of many largest oilfields on the planet.”
Vitality analyst Lewis Lawrence finds it attention-grabbing that the federal government prolonged the exploration licenses final 12 months, regardless of the moratorium. The political winds in Greenland pushing for independence from Denmark appear to lean extra in favor of welcoming the oil sector in some kind, he stated.
“There appears to be somewhat little bit of flip-flopping internally with Greenland as to whether or not they need to progress with some form of oil and fuel future or not,” Lawrence stated.
And, whereas Greenland Vitality might symbolize a longshot bid, Lawrence added, “If a sufficiently big discovery have been made, then it may compete globally.”
