How a Long-Shot U.S. Oil Drilling Project Is Shaking Up Greenland
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- A U.S. oil company pitched two exploratory wells at a June public meeting in Ittoqqortoormiit, claiming up to 13 billion barrels of oil could sit beneath Greenland's frozen east coast.
- The company offered Greenland only 15 percent of profits from any discovery, a figure that drew pointed questions from locals, according to a video of the meeting shared with The New York Times.
- Residents of Ittoqqortoormiit raised concerns about the chemicals that would be used and the threat to musk ox hunting, a central part of life in the remote Arctic settlement.
- The meeting ended with a crowd of unhappy attendees filing out, with the oilman's pitch now part of a cloud of political issues already swirling over Greenland.
- The company argued that a successful strike would deliver jobs, tax revenue, and relief to world energy markets — though none of that materializes without a discovery.
Why it matters: Greenlanders are being asked to accept drilling chemicals and risks to subsistence hunting in exchange for a 15% cut of a speculative 13-billion-barrel find — a lopsided split that is the immediate flashpoint, and one that lands as another sovereignty flashpoint piled onto Greenland's already crowded political plate.
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