Cairn Energy, which is prospecting for oil off the Greenland west coast, has announced that it has found gas in thin sand deposits, and will be continuing its test drilling for oil to its planned depth.

“The first well in Greenland provides early indication of working hydrocarbon system,” the company says in its half-yearly announcement on its website.

“I am encouraged by the fact that we have early signs of a hydrocarbon system in our first well in Greenland, which confirms our belief in the potential for extraction,” says Cairn Energy CEO Bill Gammell.

“We look forward to judging the results of the other drilling programmes for 2010,” he adds.

The company adds that it is being very careful in the vulnerable maritime environment. The drilling programme contains two platforms in order to be able to drill a relief if an accident takes place, and in critical situations only one drilling platform is used at a time.

Cairn says that icebergs have posed less of a problem than initially envisaged, with only two or three icebergs each day coming within 25 kilometres of drilling units. Cairn Energy has tugs at the ready to tow icebergs away from operations.

Meanwhile, the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza, shadowed by a Danish naval vessel, continues its watch near the Stena Don rig 170 km. off the west coast of Greenland in Baffin Bay.

The Danish navy has introduced a 5 km. no-fly and 500 metre no-approach zone around the rig, and has warned the Esperanza that it will be boarded and its captain arrested if it does not respect the regulations.