Petroleum geological activities onshore West Greenland in 1996, and drilling of a deep exploration well

Abstract

The 1996 summer season saw continued petroleum geological activities in the Disko–Nuussuaq area, onshore West Greenland. These took the form of a geological field project led by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), and continued commercial exploration by grønArctic Energy Inc. (grønArctic). In the second year of their licence, grønArctic carried out an airborne geophysical programme early in 1996 and drilled a c. 3 km deep exploration well on Nuussuaq, GRO#3, in the late summer (Fig. 1). Although the detailed results from grønArctic’s exploration are confidential (apart from the information made available at conferences and in press releases), it is evident that knowledge of the Nuussuaq Basin has greatly increased in recent years and that the basin has considerable exploration potential of its own (see Christiansen et al., 1995b, 1996a). The activities by GEUS and the exploration by grønArctic will significantly improve the understanding of the petroleum system of the basin; available data from the 1996 activities have shed light on the types and distribution of oils, source rocks and potential reservoir units.