ILULIALIK FIORD, Greenland—Geologists have long known that deep beneath the forbidding ice of this Arctic island lay buried treasure.
Below hundreds of feet of frozen water and ground, iron, copper, nickel, zinc, rare-earth minerals and rubies beckon. Oil and gas may sit offshore.
Fortune hunters taste opportunity. Prospectors from various countries, encouraged by Greenland's investment-friendly policies, have spent over $1.7 billion developing potential projects. A British company is going for iron ore. Scots are testing for undersea oil. Australians are pursuing rare earths. Canadians are digging for rubies, while giant Chinese mining and engineering concerns are jockeying for position.
In Greenland, the Arctic is in play.
Recent annual Thaws make it possible for the Danish territory to contemplate exploiting these riches, even though the 56,000 people who live on the world's biggest island lack the means to build the ports, roads and power plants required to transform the fishing-based economy into a mining one.
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New construction in Nuuk
Mining iron ore above the fiord is a potential budget-buster, starting with plans to dynamite a plaster of ice 550-feet thick. Up to 3,000 Chinese laborers will endure raging winds and subzero temperatures to construct power and processing plants. A pipeline will snake 64 miles down the mountain to a new port.
Ships loaded with ore would navigate to China, possibly on an increasingly viable summertime voyage that cuts near the North Pole and reduces Europe-China travel time by 40%.
"We recognize that it is a door-opening project for Greenland," says Graeme Hossie, chief executive officer of London Mining. "One needs to put together a lot of aligned interests to make it work."
Few "mineral hypermarkets," enthusiasts say, can rival Greenland in good governance—its Danish-standard political stability, predictable legal system and minimal corruption.
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