# Does Greenland Have Oil? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 2, 2004, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-greenland-have-oil/262753 "2004-09-02T12:23:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-greenland-have-oil/262753/1 "2004-09-02T12:23:03Z")
Greenland, the largest island, is huge. It was also a tropical region in the Jurassic period…so does it have oil deposits? Of course, it is difficult to drill there,but if you can drill off Newfoundland, Greenland shouldn’t be too much more difficult. So, have any drilling concessions been granted by the Danish Government? ---
**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-greenland-have-oil/262753/2 "2004-09-02T13:52:22Z")
Scientists now believe that oil was not created by dead dinos or dead foliage. So having a tropical climate during the Jurasic has nothing to do with oil. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-greenland-have-oil/262753/3 "2004-09-02T15:13:30Z")
> [@Dog80](#): > > Scientists now believe that oil was not created by dead dinos or dead foliage. Well, I don’t think anybody thought that Oil was dead dinosaurs, other than people who went to Sinclair. What is the current thought of scientists? Are you refering to abiogenic creation of oil as discussed in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=258479)? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-greenland-have-oil/262753/4 "2004-09-02T15:15:30Z")
One presumes that by “have oil” **Ralph** means “have underground oil reserves which one can in theory drill to and tap” – like everybody else, Greenland has oil available in tanks, bottles, etc., for the various purposes for which people use oil. And Greenland is, by and large, an outlier of the Canadian Shield insofar as geology goes, having rifted off of the North American continent somewhere in the last 150 million years. Oil generally concentrates in _sedimentary basins_, usually in _anticlines_. Shields are generally made up of igneous and metamorphic rock, not sedimentary as a rule, and are unlikely to have oil reserves. (Newfoundland, in contrast, is the product of ancient geosynclines and orogenies, and does have oil-producing potential, at least in theory.) ---
**Author:** ![paperbackwriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@paperbackwriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paperbackwriter)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-greenland-have-oil/262753/5 "2004-09-02T15:27:16Z")
A two-second Google turned up the [Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum (BMP)](http://www.bmp.gl/E/E_index.html) for the Government of Greenland, which would imply that there are at least potential petroluem resources to regulate. A little more clicking around lists [6 companies with exploration licenses](http://www.bmp.gl/E/EB2_minerals/EB2_10na_list-of-licences.html#sec_VI) in Greenland. The government appears to be [promoting petroleum exploration](http://www.geus.dk/ghexis/geol-ov.htm) in Greenland, but there isn’t any production, as yet. It does have some of the correct typeof source rock, according to those links, and some oil has been discovered. The extent and productivity is still an open question, it appears.