Davis Strait estimated that at least 13% of the world's undiscovered oil deposits and 30% of the world's undiscovered gas pockets are located in the Arctic, with the seas around Greenland potentially holding large amounts of natural gas and lesser amounts of crude oil and natural gas liquids. This has led Greenland's minister and provincial council to offer a large number of off-shore concessions to potential hydrocarbon (oil and gas) extraction. The largest concessions areas are located in seas west of Greenland, primarily the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, but with several smaller concessions in the Greenland Sea in the east also.
Baffin Bay the aquatic life of the bay is concentrated near that region. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of Baffin Bay as follows: The area of the bay has been inhabited since . Around 1200, the initial Dorset settlers were replaced by the Thule (the later Inuit) peoples. Recent excavations also suggest that the Norse colonization of the Americas reached the shores of Baffin Bay sometime between the 10th and 14th centuries. The English explorer John Davis was the first recorded European to enter the bay, arriving in 1585. In 1612, a group of English merchants formed the "Company of