Portfuel, owned by local millionaire businessman José de Sousa Cintra, (pictured below), has obtained the concession to drill for oil in the Algarve near Aljezur in the west and Tavira to the east - within the brown blocs marked on the adjoining map.
Portfuel announced the concession today and will be at first using traditional well drilling to see if and where oil reserves lie.
José de Sousa Cintra, a former chairman of Sporting, signed the deal for 'prospecting, exploration, development and production of oil.'
The National Authority for the Fuel Market, Paulo Carmona said that the concession agreements, research, development and production of oil in the areas designated for Aljezur and Tavira are only for land based activities using ‘traditional drilling methods’ for a period of four years.
Of enormous concern to the Algarve’s environmental lobby, there is no requirement for an environmental impact study for these planned drilling activities despite a 100% likleyhood that the environment will be impacted.
There will have to be a study if there is any later exploration or drilling using 'unconventional methods' such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for shale gas.
Such environmental studies are paid for by the proposer and in the case of fracking it is unlikely that there will be a sensible scientific study of the impact fracking will have on the Algarve's underground water supply systems, property values and the affect of the activity on tourism nor the long term result of the injection of toxic chemicals into the subterranean Algarve.
Paul Carmona sagely noted that Portfuel Oil and Gas Portugal has shown interest in land drilling "because it believes that it is possible to find oil," noting that these will be the first oil test drilling activities for both locations.
In an unsuccessful attempt to downplay the serious nature of the new land based concession areas that cover most of the Algarve, Carmona said that since 1981 there have been 27 test wells drilled at a costs to the industry of about €1 billion in attempts to find oil.
“All holes were abandoned because they were dry or because the amount of oil found was insufficient to justify the investment,” said Carmona, adding helpfully that drilling holes in the Algarve helps us to have a deeper knowledge of the territory.
Also since 1981 the Algarve has developed into one of the Europe's most attractive tourist areas with property prices second only to Lisbon.
How Algarve homeowners will react to oil drilling on their doorstep, whether relatively unregulated test drilling or full fracking activity, can only be guessed at.
The offshore oil and gas drilling is going ahead with plans to turn the Algarve's near offshore into a large industrial zone but there has been an underwhelming response to anti-oil petitions despite the broad impact such activity inevitably will have on the region.
Currently, several companies, such as Repsol and Partex, have permission from the government to search for oil and natural gas in the Algarve, but only in offshore blocs.
With the anti-oil fight now coming onshore and threatening people's homes and land, protests may attract more interest from those that may be adversely affected financially.
See also ASMAA's anti-offshore dilling website:
For copies of the original contracts as .pdf files, in Portuguese, click on the links below:
Tavira:
http://asmaa-algarve.org/index.php/en/news/what-s-new/download/59_7fce07657cde3a3414dd9ba483224edc
Aljezur:
http://asmaa-algarve.org/index.php/en/news/what-s-new/download/58_5ee335ccdef05e9b60b2034280c2f7ce