Amid the tensions spurred by President Donald Trump’s proclaimed desire to annex Greenland, one Texas driller made plans to create an oil boom along the Danish territory’s sparsely populated east coast. But those aspirations are now facing repeated delays in the face of regulatory and community pushback.
The first test well was slated to be drilled this summer with a camera crew overseen by producer Phil “Dr. Phil” McGraw to document the effort. As local opposition escalated and permitting slowdowns took hold, the drilling was delayed to the winter—upon the government’s request—and now, after an additional kerfuffle this week concerning the movement of drilling equipment, the project was further pushed back until the end of 2027, essentially an 18-month delay.
Oil drilling is especially sensitive in Greenland where there’s a climate change-related moratorium on licensing, though the Texas company is essentially operating by means of a grandfathered loophole. The situation has become more delicate still as the White House repeatedly signals it wishes to take over the massive icy territory in order to tap petroleum and critical minerals.
But Robert Price, the CEO of Texas-based Greenland Energy, exclusively told Fortune he is disappointed but undeterred, and he remains as bullish as ever about Greenland’s oil prospects.
“It was very frustrating. We’ve had some ups and downs in the last week or so,” Price said. “We actually had much of the equipment being mobilized. And when we got word from the government, we shut down the mobilization. We had a drilling rig in in Calgary that was en route to Montreal. So there were some sunken costs. A lot of those costs will be able to be used for the next drilling season.”
Wall Street was disappointed though. Since going public in March on the Nasdaq Global Market, Greenland Energy’s market cap has plunged nearly 85% down to about $54 million. But Price insists the company is stable.
“We preserved a lot of cash on hand. Financially, we’re still very sound,” the veteran oilman said.
The Greenland government requested the company drill in the winter instead of the summer for environmental purposes. “The birds have already migrated. The tundra will not be disturbed. We’ll be able to go literally over it when it’s iced up,” Price said.
On the downside, helicopter evacuations and harsher weather are trickier during the winter months. “The winter can be unpredictable in the Arctic Circle, and so we do worry about the health and safety of our people if someone got injured, being able to get them out,” Price added.
Even then, the hope was to drill this winter, and not more than a year from now.
“We had indications from the government that we’d get our permits soon and then, as it turned out, they wanted to take their time,” Price said. On the bright side, at least now, “We have a real clear timeline on the permitting,” he added.
And the goal of extracting many billions of barrels of oil remains intact. “This one [test] well could be up to 2.9 billion barrels of oil. So the prize is still there, and the upside is still there. The timing is the only thing that’s changed.”
Long time coming
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The long history of Greenland oil is rife with decades of trial and error.
Fresh off the massive Prudhoe Bay oil discovery in Alaska in the late 1960s, the Atlantic Richfield Co., better known as ARCO—later acquired by BP—identified offshore Greenland as a top oil prospect in the 1970s.
ARCO and others spent more than $100 million on seismic surveying and assessments of Greenland with plans to develop oil and gas in the territory. But, after some initial drilling pilot programs were unsuccessful, dreams of Greenland’s black gold fell by the wayside when the oil industry infamously went bust in the 1980s. Smaller efforts popped up in Greenland over the years, but nothing came to fruition. The UK’s Cairn Energy—now Capricorn Energy—abandoned the most recent drilling effort in 2011 after mixed, mostly failed results.
Nearly all of these projects were offshore though, and Greenland Energy is taking an onshore approach. Despite decades of geological study, eastern Greenland’s Jameson Land Basin remainscompletely undrilleduntil potentially next summer.
Price believes Jameson could be the next Prudhoe Bay. And a defunct British company is his potential path to seeing that dream come true.
London-based White Flame Energy was founded over a decade ago to explore for oil and gas in Greenland. No development came to pass, but the company critically won three licenses for exploration in the Jameson basin. The licenses received three-year extensions in 2024. Later that year, U.K.-based 80 Mile acquired White Flame. And Price’s company partnered with 80 Mile to take over the grandfathered licenses—the only ones in Greenland that haven’t expired.
Earlier this year, a reverse merger deal was finalized to take Price’s company public. changing the name to Greenland Energy in the process. Price’s team leads the operations while 80 Mile keeps a 30% stake in the project.
The drilling pilot project was progressing but then came a new dispute with the government over a permit—or lack thereof—to recently move drilling equipment to the region. The Greenland government believed the oil company was trying to proceed without due permission, but the company says it was a misunderstanding
The government said it issued a “strong warning” with an additional “warning that all future logistical matters must be advised and approved by the mineral resources authority—before they are carried out.”
Price said they realized late in the process that its permit to move equipment onto the site expired at the end of 2025. As the renewal was pending, the company made a deal with the Greenland Airports authority to store equipment at the nearby Nerlerit Inaat Airport. Instead, it turned out they needed an additional permit from the government’s minerals authority—and not just the airport.
Everything is squared away now, Price insisted, and there should be no further delays.
“There’s a lot of time now to make sure that we get it right,” Price said.
As for the Dr. Phil-hosted documentary? It’s on pause and up in the air.
