My OperaGreenland Oil Exploration
Friday, July 2, 2010 9:19:01 AM
A fifth of the world's undiscovered but exploitable gas and oil reserves may lie in the Arctic, some of it in Greenland. A new wave of oil exploration has started.
The Edinburgh-based firm Cairn Energy has just announced that it has started drilling for oil in the Disko West area offshore in western Greenland, where it has a four-well exploration programme planned. Other oil firms are following. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated that there may be as much as 50,000 million barrels of oil equivalent offshore Greenland.
A repeat of the recent disaster in the Gulf of Mexico would be terrible, and no doubt the oil firms will do a lot (hopefully enough?) to ensure there is no possibility of a repeat. Not least because of the requirements from the Greenlandish authorities. The firms have to deposit a liability guarantee equivalent to about 8000 million € (60,000,000,000 DKK - cash, bank guarantee or other acceptable guarantee) per drilling before they are allowed to drill. I understand that the first drilling may have begun at a water depth between 300 and 500 m and 175 km off shore. The planned full depth of the two first exploration wells is 4,200 m and 3,250 m to be reached in respectively 55 and 38 days.
Disko Island or Qeqertarsuaq (meaning “the large island”), is a big island in Baffin Bay, off the west coast of Greenland at a latitude of 70° North.
Some of us are extremely worried about possible consequences, especially with the Gulf of Mexico in mind.
In Norwegian:
http://www.petro.no/modules/module_123/proxy.asp?D=2&C=29&I=14412&mid=20
http://www.petro.no/modules/module_123/proxy.asp?I=14229&C=29&D=2&mid=20
In Danish:
http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2010/06/29/070053.htm
The Edinburgh-based firm Cairn Energy has just announced that it has started drilling for oil in the Disko West area offshore in western Greenland, where it has a four-well exploration programme planned. Other oil firms are following. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated that there may be as much as 50,000 million barrels of oil equivalent offshore Greenland.
A repeat of the recent disaster in the Gulf of Mexico would be terrible, and no doubt the oil firms will do a lot (hopefully enough?) to ensure there is no possibility of a repeat. Not least because of the requirements from the Greenlandish authorities. The firms have to deposit a liability guarantee equivalent to about 8000 million € (60,000,000,000 DKK - cash, bank guarantee or other acceptable guarantee) per drilling before they are allowed to drill. I understand that the first drilling may have begun at a water depth between 300 and 500 m and 175 km off shore. The planned full depth of the two first exploration wells is 4,200 m and 3,250 m to be reached in respectively 55 and 38 days.
Disko Island or Qeqertarsuaq (meaning “the large island”), is a big island in Baffin Bay, off the west coast of Greenland at a latitude of 70° North.
Some of us are extremely worried about possible consequences, especially with the Gulf of Mexico in mind.
- http://www.londonwired.co.uk/news.php/71755-Cairn-Energy-begins-Greenland-oil-exploration
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/scotland/edinburgh_east_and_fife/10474290.stm
In Norwegian:
http://www.petro.no/modules/module_123/proxy.asp?D=2&C=29&I=14412&mid=20
http://www.petro.no/modules/module_123/proxy.asp?I=14229&C=29&D=2&mid=20
In Danish:
http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2010/06/29/070053.htm
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