In a move that has anti-oil activists reaching for the bubbly, the Galp-ENI oil consortium has stated that it is unable to start drilling for oil off Aljezur this year.
The letter sent to the ENMC* says that "a delay is inevitable," and was copied to the Ministry of the Sea, the DGRM** and the Directorate-General for Energy.
The consortium blames its predicament on a Loulé Court decision which ordered the consortium not to lift so much as a spanner in its quest for oil.
This Court ban, according to an increasingly frustrated consortium and its band of top-class lawyers, had "the immediate consequence of being impossible to carry out the drilling operations as it was contractually obliged to do."
"...a postponement is once again inevitable," due to matters outside the consortium’s control, reads the latest letter from the energy consortium whose infiltration of the Ministry of the Sea by Galp, recently sent waves of embarrassment through government as it was confimed that Galp's Ruben Eiras had been taken on as the Director-General of Marine Policy. See ‘Pro-oil Sea Minister advised all along by senior Galp employee’
The oil exploration scheduled for 2018 was suspended in September, based on an injunction filed by Quercus, Sciaena and Almargen which argued that the public consultation process had not resulted in the need for a cetacean monitoring report, which now has been completed.
Anti-oil association, ASMAA, which has fought an intelligent yet exhausting campaign, says the government has no intention to cancel the deep offshore drilling schedule to take place off Aljezur.
“We are of the opinion that the government wants to wait until past the national elections due to take place early in 2019, and that it will afterwards open up Portugal to be exploited by oil companies both onshore as well as offshore. With new international tenders and contracts being awarded then,” comments Laurinda Seabra from ASMAA who is convinced that new exploration contracts certainly will include fracking."
Seabra reminds the public that the current legal frustration of the consortium was based solely on an injunction challenging the authorisation given for the use of Portuguese maritime space, the TUPEM licence, to drill an exploratory well, nothing else.
With this fragile suspension in place, for which Seabra expressed thanks, ASMAA has mounted a detailed legal barrage with a Class Action in Loulé Court filed on April 6th, followed by a follow-up injunction in August demanding widespread and comprehensive cancellation of licences and concession awards.
Seabra commented, “...we are deeply grateful for this suspension, which was obtained by the three associations that brought an injunction against the award of the TUPEM, even if it will be only temporary nature i.e. until the end of the year ... because once again, the bottom line is that there is a suspension to the drilling, and any suspension at this stage of the game, is very, very welcome!”
Meanwhile, the government continues to aid and abet the oil companies despite fierce and widespread local opposition to drilling on land or at sea.
The government’s mantra, "we just want to know what’s out there’ has long ago been dismissed as ridiculous as it aids the energy companies to the detriment of the public interest. Sloppily, the State was so convinced it could cut corners that it has left a trail of legal opportunities to have the whole oil exploration programme cancelled.
The revelation that the Minister for the Sea has been advised all along by an employee of Galp Energia, who now has been promoted to her policy advisor, is a shocking example of how the State continues to act with arrogance and duplicity – certainly without any form of basic ethics in the case of the newly dubbed Minister for Galp, Ana Paula Vitorino, who managed to hang onto her job at the ministerial reshuffle this weekend.
*ENMC - Entidade Nacional para o Mercado de Combustíveis
** DGRM – Direção-Geral de Recursos Naturais, Segurança e Serviços Marítimos
