Drill, baby drill - Greenland, the final frontier?9 Mar 2026 09:26
This was a publication on the Jameson Land project by Energy Voice who claim to be UK's only media brand covering the entire UK energy sector – from oil and gas and North Sea energy to offshore wind, hydrogen, nuclear, and more. Access to the publication requires registration. I have therefore reproduced the publication for readers' convenience - https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/593042/greenland-drilling-plans-take-shape-for-us-backed-explorers/
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Is there still an appetite for frontier exploration from UK investors? An executive at Greenland-focused 80 Mile does not see it, in stark contrast to US enthusiasm.
“The UK has lost its risk appetite – that thundering herd of British investors doesn't really exist anymore,” 80 Mile executive director Rod McIllree told Energy Voice. “This is why we’re pushing everything into America.”
His company has sealed a deal with a US company to drill two wells in Greenland’s onshore Jameson Basin, targeting what could be one of the world’s last untouched oil frontiers.
Sproule ERCE estimates more than 13 billion barrels of recoverable prospective resources – a prize that has American investors rushing in where British capital feared to tread.
London-based 80 Mile is building on work done in the 1970s and 80s, when ARCO dug deep to explore Greenland’s Atlantic margin – before the 1987 crash wiped out the project. It was in fact ARCO that built the local airport, Constable Point.
Thirty years later, that legacy data may finally bear fruit as geopolitical interest in Arctic resources intensifies.
American oil understands these sorts of projects better than anyone else. They’re about to send 50,000 tonnes of equipment to the east coast of Greenland,” McIllree said.
Halliburton is working on support and logistics, while IPT Well Solutions oversees project managing and drilling oversight. Last week, Canada’s Desgagnés signed on to handle shipping the equipment to Jameson Land.
DRILLING IN
The plan involves sending equipment between May and July and then start drilling in October. This is likely to carry on into early 2027. These two 3,500 metre wells will test the entire basin, he said.
“The first two wells test these stack sequences that are very similar to the North Sea, in the Triassic, Jurassic and Permian,” he said. “Some of the traps we’re seeing are pretty substantial.”
The first well, OP1, is targeting a potential 600 metre thick structure, which could cover 120 km by 60 km. “This is what all the hoohaa is about.”
McIllree cites a higher figure than Sproule’s 13bn barrels, used internally by ARCO, but notes the binary nature of exploration. “The first step is to define whether there is oil there – or not.”
The geologist explains the theory behind the Jameson Basin lies in its historic connection to the North Sea. It is “the other half”, McIllree says, where “Norway and Greenland used to be one connected landmass”.
Continued....
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