A Trump-linked oil company has shown up on the Danish territory without an invitation
An American oil company backed by powerful associates of US President Donald Trump has shipped drilling equipment to Greenland without permission from the Danish territory’s government. Is Trump trying to annex Greenland one bite at a time?
Less than two weeks ago, a Danish tugboat towed a cargo ship into port at Nerlerit Inaat, 450 kilometers above the Arctic circle on Greenland’s east coast. The cargo ship, operated by a company called Permagreen, unloaded an excavator and 15 containers of equipment, before leaving the following day, according to Danwatch, a Danish investigative journalism outlet.
A Permagreen spokesperson told Danwatch that the company was hired by the Texas-based Greenland Energy Company to deliver “some machinery and equipment that will support their oil exploration” in the region of Jameson Land.
The Greenland Energy Company had no permission to deliver the equipment, Greenland’s Energy Ministry said in a press release, adding that the company has still not been granted the necessary permits to drill in Jameson Land, a wetland area protected by the international Ramsar Convention.
Is the Greenland Energy Company allowed to drill?
Despite the lack of approval by Greenland itself, the Greenland Energy Company is treating drilling as a foregone conclusion. The company posted a series of updates on social media as Permagreen’s tugboat left Denmark and docked at Greenland’s capital city, Nuuk. On LinkedIn, oilfield machinery company Stampede Drilling posted a picture of a drilling rig bearing Greenland Energy’s logo, declaring that it was “Greenland bound.”
The company has claimed that another ship carrying 300 containers of drilling equipment is ready to set sail from Canada to Greenland on September 12. Exploratory drilling will begin in October, a spokesperson told The Guardian.
However, Greenland stopped issuing new oil drilling licenses in 2021. No significant deposits had been found in the preceding 50 years, and the government in Nuuk concluded that the environmental impact was not worth the meager returns. A handful of licenses remain active, including one covering Jameson Land, held by a UK-based company called 80 Mile. Greenland Energy has said that it will fund exploration on 80 Mile’s land, in exchange for 70% of revenue generated by the project.
Despite operating under 80 Mile’s license, Greenland Energy must still obtain the necessary permits. “The project is still in the exploration phase,” Greenland’s energy ministry stated in a press release in early August. Even if the permits are granted with no delays, no drilling will take place this year, a ministry spokesperson told Danwatch.
On August 8, Greenland Energy described “recent high-level meetings with Greenlandic authorities” as “constructive.”
How much oil is under Jameson Land?
Greenland Energy believes that $1 trillion worth of crude oil may lie beneath the Jameson Land Basin. The company plans to spend $60 million on an exploratory well, with the project to be expanded “once the results of the first have been analysed.”
“I believe it’s there,” Greenland Energy CEO Robert Price told residents of a Jameson Land village in June. “The scientists believe that it’s there. But until we drill these wells, we don’t know.”
Is the project connected to Trump’s Greenland annexation plans?
Greenland Energy was incorporated on September 5, 2025, a week after it emerged that Trump had sent three associates to Greenland to meet with local secessionists, who want to break away from Denmark. The Danish Foreign Ministry summoned the US charge d’affaires in Copenhagen to explain what Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called “unacceptable” interference in Danish affairs.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to annex Greenland throughout his second term in office, claiming that the US needs the landmass “for the purpose of national security” – namely to host elements of his promised ‘Golden Dome’ ballistic missile defense network. Trump has also said directly that he wants “Greenland for its rare-earth minerals.”
While Trump has not publicly expressed interest in Greenland’s potential oil wealth, the Greenland Energy project is backed by multiple close associates of the US president, including his special envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry.
Landry made an uninvited visit to Nuuk in May, declaring upon arrival that it was “time for the US to put its footprint back on Greenland.” Oil exploration is a key part of this footprint, he told Fox News after the trip. “We need a deal,” he said. “Greenland needs a deal. We could be – Greenland could be – exporting two million barrels of oil a day right now.”
“We could have those barrels on production within 10 months or so,” Landry added.
Carol Craig, a US Navy veteran, joined Greenland Energy’s board in April. Craig is the founder and CEO of Sidus Space, a defense contractor that won part of a $151 billion contract to build the ‘Golden Dome’ last December. Craig’s “background in aerospace, defense, and engineering will be invaluable as we advance our exploration program in Greenland’s Jameson Land Basin,” Greenland Energy said when it announced her appointment to the board.
Wrapping up the list of Trump associates tied in to the project is Phil McGraw, better known as TV host Dr. Phil. McGraw campaigned with Trump in 2024, leads the president’s religious liberty commission, and was hired by Greenland Energy in June to produce a documentary series following its drillers into the Jameson Land Basin.
“Just a man who believes there is one of the largest untapped oil fields on the planet sitting under the ice in Greenland, and he is the only person on the planet with the legal right to see if it’s truly there.” @GL_Energy_Co
WATCHING: GLND.
Educational content only. Not… pic.twitter.com/SDGbgjz6kl
— GateWatch (@GatewatchHQ) June 30, 2026
“That’s an oilman who drills when nobody else has the guts to do it,” McGraw said in an interview with Price. “This is exploration under the Northern Lights, how exciting can it get!
Nobody involved with the project has publicly discussed the annexation of Greenland, but drilling and territorial acquisition are seemingly connected in Trump’s mind: On August 1, two days after the first equipment was dropped off at Nerlerit Inaat, the president posted an image of himself looming over Greenland on his Truth Social platform, along with the caption “Hello, Greenland!”
How has Denmark responded?
The Danish government has not commented on the arrival of drilling equipment to Greenland, nor has Copenhagen commented on the validity of the Greenland Energy/80 Mile drilling license. After Trump once again declared last month that Greenland “should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark,” Frederiksen reiterated that “it is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”
Frederiksen has given the same response when Trump attempted to purchase Greenland from Denmark, and when he warned that seizing the territory by military force “is always an option.”
With neither approach swaying officials in Copenhagen and Nuuk, the president may now be attempting to expand the US foothold in Greenland in order to present occupation as a fait accompli. If such a plan exists, it all hinges on Greenland Energy discovering oil where five decades of exploration failed.