The last time the oil industry pursued a frontier like this, it changed the global energy map.
In 1968, a forest well on the northern edge of Alaska opened Prudhoe Bay, the largest oil field discovered in the United States. In 2015, Exxon drilled a well offshore Guyana that discovered the Stabroek block, now estimated to contain more than 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
Both discoveries began the same way: a small team of geologists drilling a well in a place that most of the industry had already written off.
A company called Greenland Energy now plans to test the same frontier.
Its target is the remote Jameson Land Basin off the east coast of Greenland – one of the last untapped petroleum systems in the Arctic.
And timing may be extraordinarily important.
Greenland has suddenly become a geopolitical flash point. Washington has been pushing to bring the island more firmly under US influence as Arctic shipping lanes open up and Russia and China expand their presence across the region.
This change has made the island much more than an isolated arctic region.
It has become a strategic energy frontier.
One of the world’s most important untapped oil provinces
Greenland Energy was created to move quickly on the increasing global interest that now revolves around Greenland and the Arctic.
The company was formed through a merger between Texas-based explorer March GL, Greenland Exploration Ltd., and Pelican Acquisition Corporation, a Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company. Currently trading as PELI. The deal is expected to close on March 17 and the combined entity will operate as Greenland Energy Company and is expected to trade on the Nasdaq under the new ticker GLND.
The formation brings together the project operations team, exploration licenses, and public market capital needed to advance drilling in the Jameson Land Basin. Veteran oil executive Robert Price, who founded March GL, will lead the company.
Related: Inside North America’s first fully integrated rare earth facility
Its purpose is clear: drill and test the first modern exploration wells in the Jameson Land Basin, which geologists believe could be the largest undeveloped petroleum systems in the Arctic.
According to a Greenland Energy corporate presentation, if preliminary geological models prove correct, the basin could contain more than 13 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
The estimate is based on about 1,800 kilometers of seismic data collected by the Atlantic Richfield during exploration campaigns in the 1980s, which modern explorers have reinterpreted to identify new drilling targets.
Greenland Energy believes the updated interpretation points to a huge opportunity beneath the basin – and independent analysts have reached the same conclusion. A petroleum resource assessment by Sproule-ERCE reached similar conclusions, identifying the Jameson Land Basin as one of the most important untapped oil provinces in the Arctic.
Why Jameson Land looks familiar to petroleum geologists
One reason Jameson Land has attracted renewed interest is its geology.
Before Greenland and northern Europe were separated by tectonic forces, they formed part of the same sedimentary basin that geologists now call the Atlantic margin. When the continents drifted apart millions of years ago, the layers of rock that once sat side by side merged with them.
In its distribution in Europe, these formations became the best oil provinces on earth. The Norwegian and British North Sea fields have produced tens of billions of barrels of oil since the 1970s, forming the backbone of Europe’s offshore energy industry.
Jameson Land forms the western edge of the same North Atlantic petroleum system that produces the large North Sea oil fields. Studies by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland have identified Permian-Triassic source rocks and reservoirs throughout the Jameson Land Basin—the same formations responsible for many of the North Sea’s oil fields.
For geologists studying the basin today, the key elements of a large petroleum system are already in place.
The first company to seriously test this idea was Atlantic Richfield, and it left behind a gold mine of data that emerging technologies are now promisingly reinterpreting. In the 1980s, when Atlantic Richfield launched the Jameson Land exploration campaign, it was one of America’s largest oil producers.
Related: How China’s rare-earth embargo hindered US technology successh
ARCO geologists mapped the basin and collected about 1,800 kilometers of seismic data, identifying structures that could hold large amounts of oil. Rock samples confirmed an active petroleum system.
But the timing was wrong. In the late 1980s, oil prices plummeted, and the cost of operating in the world’s remote Arctic regions proved too high. ARCO surrendered the licenses in the early 1990s, leaving behind a large seismic dataset.
Decades later, at the height of the struggle to gain access to this strategic milestone, Greenland Energy’s exploration team returned to the basin and reprocessed the seismic recordings using state-of-the-art subsurface imaging technology—the same advanced technology that has helped unlock major discoveries around the world.
Wild cutter behind arctic bat
Leading the effort is oil veteran Robert Price, a Texas forest cutter who has spent more than four decades drilling frontier wells in the United States.
During his career, Price helped find millions of barrels of oil in basins from Oklahoma and Kansas to North Dakota and Montana. Greenland, however, represents a far greater reward..
“I’ve drilled and found millions of barrels of oil in my career,” Price said in an interview. “I never drilled for billions.”
Price established the March GL after reviewing historical exploration data from the Jameson Land Basin and concluding that the opportunity had never been fully tested. Pelican Acquisition Corporation and Greenland Exploration Ltd. Through the merger, these efforts now form Greenland Energy—the company poised to drill the first modern exploration wells in the basin in decades.
The first well is planned for 2026
Greenland Energy now plans to drill wells that could finally answer a question that geologists have debated for decades.
The company’s initial campaign will focus on two exploratory wells in the Jameson Land Basin, targeting major structures first identified in seismic data collected by Atlantic Richfield and recently reprocessed using state-of-the-art imaging technology.
Related: Why Trump Wants Magnets More Than Gold
According to a company disclosure, the first well is expected to cost about $40 million, and the second follow-up well is estimated at about $20 million. The campaign is designed to test whether the geological model of the basin is maintained after the drill bit reaches the reservoir.
If successful, the results could confirm the existence of a petroleum system capable of supporting a large Arctic oil province.
Why Greenland is back at the center of global strategy
Greenland is no longer an arctic strip.
In recent years the island has become one of the most controversial strategic locations in the Northern Hemisphere. President Donald Trump has repeatedly argued that the United States needs Greenland for national security, citing the island’s location between North America, Europe and the Arctic Ocean.
From a military perspective, Greenland anchors the western edge of the Greenland-Iceland-UK space – an important corridor used to monitor Russian naval activity entering the North Atlantic.
But security is only part of the equation.
Greenland is also believed to have large reserves of rare earth elements and other important minerals that Western governments increasingly consider essential for modern technology and defense supply chains.
Greenland has exploded into the center of world attention.
Governments see rare earth minerals and a strategic footprint in the Arctic – along the sea lanes and military corridors connecting North America and Europe.
Oil explorers are looking at one of the last major petroleum systems on the planet that has barely been tested. That’s why Jameson Land and its strategic frontier potential are back on the oil radar.
by Tom Cole
The AI boom is creating an unexpected and unprecedented boom in natural gas and electricity storage. If you’re ignoring the energy demands of data centers, you’re missing the biggest energy story of the decade. The smart money is already quietly flowing into a handful of companies poised for trillion-dollar AI machine power.
Oil Price Intelligence gives you an inside look at where future gains will come from, breaking down the market’s biggest growth drivers with experienced oil and expert analysis. Click here to get this important intel for free
Oil Price Intelligence brings you signals before they hit front page news. This is the same expert analysis read by experienced traders and political consultants. Get it twice a week for free, and you’ll always know why the market is moving against everyone else.
You get geopolitical intelligence, secret inventory data, and market waves that move billions – and we’ll send you $389 in premium energy intelligence, just for joining. Join 400,000+ readers today. Get instant access by clicking here.
