Licence to drill? How a Trump-linked Texas oil company is elbowing its way into Greenland

At a meeting in Ittoqqortoormiit, a settlement of 300 people, Robert Price said he believed $1tn of crude lay beneath Jameson Land. Photograph: Adrian Wojcik/Getty/iStockphoto View image in fullscreen At a meeting in Ittoqqortoormiit, a settlement of 300 people, Robert Price said he believed $1tn of crude lay beneath Jameson Land. Photograph: Adrian Wojcik/Getty/iStockphoto Licence to drill? How a Trump-linked Texas oil company is elbowing its way into Greenland Greenland Energy says billions of barrels of crude lie beneath territory and claims it has exploration permits – a claim flatly denied by Nuuk O n 10 June, a snowy-haired American in his 60s addressed the residents of a remote Greenland hamlet. He was there to tell them about a business venture supported by figures linked to Donald Trump . “So,” Robert Price said via an interpreter, “we have a project to drill for oil here.” The Texas oil company that Price represents, Greenland Energy, hopes to prove that billions of barrels of crude lie underground by bringing in 300 shipping containers of drilling kit. “We have the permit to put the equipment on the land,” footage of the gathering in Ittoqqortoormiit shows Price saying. “And then we’ve filed our permits – pending approval – to drill.” But Greenland’s resources ministry said that contrary to Price’s claim, there were “no actually active permissions for any exploration activity or permissions for preparations for these activities”. The dispute threatens a showdown between the Trump-linked backers of Greenland Energy and the authorities in the vast, sparsely populated territory. Trump’s lieutenants are using the prospect of an American oil find in Greenland to bolster their case for an American takeover. View image in fullscreen Jeff Landry, right, on a visit to Nuuk in May as Trump’s special envoy to Greenland. Landry said the territory ‘could be exporting 2m barrels of oil a day’. Photograph: Christian Klindt Soelbeck/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty The US president’s special envoy to Greenland, the hard-right Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, returned from a visit in May to declare on Fox News : “We need a deal. Greenland needs a deal. We could be – Greenland could be – exporting 2m barrels of oil a day right now.” Landry, who says his task is to “make Greenland a part of the US”, added: “We could have those barrels on production within 10 months or so.” Greenland Energy appears to be the only company making plans to drill in the territory. Despite seemingly not yet having permission, it has chartered an Arctic-going vessel to ferry its equipment 4,000km through icy waters to Greenland’s eastern coast. Price, an energy industry veteran who has become the public face of the company, said the vessel would depart in two months, on 12 September, with drilling to begin in October. Halliburton, the giant Houston-based contractor once led by the former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney, will run the logistics. Ever since Trump made his imperial d