Oil or gas found off Greenland

If there is significant oil there it will be drilled. Greenpeace vs Money? Guess which one wins.

For the record, what they did find was gas. While this is evidence of a functional hydrocarbon system existing within that basin, it is not yet proof that oil is down there, especially since required gas amounts present of this kind for confident assumptions that oil is there have not yet been achieved. Along with the biogenic properties and early stage of drilling this gas was found at, it cannot be certain whether or not they have struck something here or having simply found gas, which would be significantly less valuable a commodity. As far as I know, no analysts have changed their valuation of Cairn yet because all this shows is that prospective exploration has a great possibility for expansion with and after T8-1, as the current results are inconclusive, with the target depth not yet reached and two further exploration wells planned.

That following this announcement Cairn had a massive fall in their stock (4%) showed that this find was riding on a wave of optimism about possibly finding an equivalent to the massive output which was achieved from the North Sea. It did recover the majority of that loss already, for the record, and this is an upturn for the company after having losses for the last while. Surprised BBC did not pick up on this faster, since other news networks had already arrived with the advanced information about the situation by then.

I can definitely see why the Canadian companies based in the industry in Canada are showing some interest and eyeing what goes on with this exploratory well. A new sizeable Basin has a genuine possibility of crossing over in Canadian waters, and parts of the region are already owned by Canadian companies like Husky. Along with current Canadian assets, this could be a very lucky find – a basin like the North Sea could provide several dozen billion barrels of oil, as high as 50 billion, from what I have read.

This is good, since 250 million barrels would be required to make the expensive set up profitable for an oil company. This is due in part to local conditions, the requirements of the environment (Greenland isn’t forgiving) and the possibility that, like Venezuela and Alberta, these are tar sands, which have a very intensive extraction process. The fact that these may be tar sands is one of the sparks with some activist groups, like Greenpeace, since they feel that the extraction process and requisite safety requirements are incredibly difficult to live up to in that environment and that another disaster may occur. This is complicated by the fact that Greenland, a self governing nation owned by Denmark, is sparsely populated and likely could not respond to potential environmental disasters if another oil rush is sparked as a rush occurs to the North if oil is found.

The oil industry runs at a very slow rate (the long term is measured in years, easily), and drilling takes a decent amount of time. From what I understand, the general formations in the area are not even well understood or mapped to the degree of what you will find for most wells drilled, which means that in the long run we won’t see a functional industry up there arise in less than several years. The construction, survey, exploratory and financial factors behind this will require a long period of time to occur. This will likely be complicated by heightened international demands for well safety after recent large spills like the one in America, and lesser known but still occurring spills like the one which occurred in the Yellow Sea after the one in the Gulf of Mexico. Already governments are moving for additional environmental surveys and other involvement, so I bet that this is going to be a running discussion and debate if oil is found for several years, just as other major oil discoveries in South America, Canada, and Africa have set off debates which still rage to this day.

In any case, tossing out some of the stuff I’ve read from other articles which may or may not have been explored in the article (as I know the article has missed out on a few key points, likely in an effort to keep the article short and to the major points).

We all know Greenland is Canadian territory....