Petty Officer 3rd Class Britton Helms collects geospatial engineering data at Helguvik, Iceland, during an exercise in 2022. (U.S. Navy)
Iceland is expanding a NATO fuel storage facility in the country’s southwest amid heightened security concerns and a renewed emphasis by the alliance on the North Atlantic.
The facility is being developed at Helguvik, about five miles from Keflavik International Airport, where U.S. forces sometimes operate. The airport area served as a key NATO surveillance and anti-submarine hub during the Cold War.
The fuel site will include a new berth and fuel storage tanks capable of holding 25,000 cubic meters of maritime fuel, according to a statement released Thursday by the Icelandic government.
NATO is financing the construction, the statement said. The investment is expected to total up to about $67 million, according to the Icelandic daily Morgunbladid, which reported that the new facility will be nearly a quarter mile long.
“It is important to strengthen the defense infrastructure and capabilities here in Iceland in order to better ensure support for Allied ships conducting surveillance and operations in the North Atlantic,” Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir said in the government’s statement.
“These facilities are also useful for us and contribute to increased security in terms of fuel supplies and port facilities,” she said.
Preparatory work and design for the Helguvik expansion are underway, the government said, with construction scheduled to begin in late 2026 and be completed in 2029.
The announcement coincided with a visit to Iceland by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, during which senior alliance officials underscored the country’s strategic importance to transatlantic security.
NATO has placed renewed emphasis on securing the North Atlantic, a region long viewed as critical to monitoring Russian naval and air activity and protecting transatlantic supply routes.
Iceland, a founding NATO member, has no standing military and contributes to the alliance through host-nation support and access to strategically located air and maritime facilities. The country’s own defense capabilities are limited to the Icelandic coast guard, which is responsible for maritime security, airspace monitoring and search-and-rescue operations.
The island lies along the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom, or GIUK, gap, a key naval and air corridor linking the Arctic to the Atlantic and long viewed as essential to protecting transatlantic sea lanes used to move forces and supplies between North America and Europe.
