Portugal’s left wing website esquerda.net - which ‘reflects the opinions of the Left Bloc - has delivered a damning report on the government’s continuing desire to turn Portugal’s sea and land areas into oil and gas production zones.
Summarising the history of the oil and gas programme, while showing how out of date and out of touch government policy is with current thinking on energy policies, esquerda.net effectively has laid out the Left Bloc’s position.
The summary praises the actions of pressure groups in the Algarve region for standing up to duplicitous government machinations and notes the indefinite postponement of two drilling programmes to the south and west of the Algarve.
This concession process began in 2007 with Manuel Pinho, the then Minister of Economy. In the Algarve the first awards were made in 2011, under Álvaro Santos Pereira.
Repsol and Germany’s RWE signed the concession agreements of which part was transferred in 2012 to Partex, the oil company 100% owned by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
In September 2015, Jorge Moreira da Silva, the Minister of the Environment, signed two land-based concessions with Sousa Cintra’s Portfuel (see picture below for display of environmental care) just a month before the October 2015 elections that saw Passos Coelho’s coalition kicked out.
Later, Moreira da Silva signed two more land concessions, Batalha and Pombal, with Australis Oil & Gas.
esquerda.net has interviewed Louise Schmidt, a sociologist at Lisbon University’s Institute of Social Sciences, who is a member of the National Environment and Sustainable Development Council and of the European Environment Advisory Council.
Schmidt makes the point that any oil and gas discovered belongs to the concession holder which has no obligation to sell fuel cheaply to Portugal - hence there is no built-in price advantage for Portugal’s refineries, government or consumers.
Louise Schmidt summarises: "if people know that from an economic point of view, something that the Portuguese are very sensitive to, that all of this brings them practically no advantagem as the contracts have been made in an economically disastrous way and with very small percentages per barrel, it is very little money for all of us, for the country, when compared with the very negative impact it may have on other economic activities and our well-being in general."
The article notes that all over the country there have been actions and petitions against oil exploration. Even the Algarve's 16 mayors have gone to court to halt the process.
The Left Bloc website notes the activities of ASMAA, Plataforma Algarve Livre de Petróleo, Tavira em Transição, STOP Petróleo Vila do Bispo, Movimento Algarve Livre de Petróleo, Preservar Algarve - Aljezur e Odeceixe, and the national organisation Movimento Futuro Limpo.
Pressure has led to Galp announcing a decision to postpone drilling off the Alentejo coast - its president said the concession has to be ‘revised.’
Less than two weeks later, it was the turn of Repsol which announced that it had decided to postpone drilling off the Algarve coast and did not give a new start date.
Peniche is noted as one of the locations that may be affected by oil. In July it created the Movimento Peniche Livre de Petróleo.
The Left Bloc currently props up the Socialist government and if its MPs and executive now can agree this position statement on oil and gas exploration and emphasise the need for renewable energy expansion and development and the Paris CO2 agreement, the protestors led from the Algarve will be one step closer to the result they desire.
See:
http://www.esquerda.net/artigo/reportagem-exploracao-de-petroleo-contestada-em-portugal/44335
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