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| Great White North |
| Big oil targets Greenland |
| 2006-07-19 |
| CALGARY - Some of the world's biggest energy companies, among them Calgary-based EnCana Corp., have gathered in a tiny town on Greenland's west coast to consider developing one of the last untapped offshore oil frontiers. Greenland is auctioning exploration rights to eight blocks covering 92,000 square kilometres in the Davis Strait between the huge island's west coast and Canada's Baffin Island. The 13 oil producers invited to Ilulissat include the largest from Europe, the United States and several from Canada in addition to EnCana, Jrn Skov Nielsen, the top bureaucrat with Greenland's Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum, said yesterday. He would not give specific names. The climate is harsh, the work window short and no exploration wells have been drilled in the region since the 1970s and '80s, when companies' attempts to find commercial-sized, onshore oilfields on Disko Island were unsuccessful. The forces driving the world's oil industry have changed significantly since then but Greenland's potential to become a large oil producer has not, Mr. Skov Nielsen said. "Many thought the costs of coming here were a little too high but they've discovered now, compared to other places in the world, that they aren't so high," Mr. Skov Nielsen said from Ilulissat. "Ice isn't the trouble companies thought it was, oil prices are sky high and companies badly need to replace their reserves with new finds." Firms have three days, starting yesterday, to pore over seismic data collected by the Greenland government over the past five years. The bidding round closes on Dec. 15. |
| Posted by:Steve |