First the Galp-ENI oil company consortium postponed indefinitely its drilling programme off the coast of Aljezur, and now the Repsol and Partex consortium has said it too is not going to be pressing ahead with its October plan to start drilling to the south of Faro.
Spain’s Repsol said today that its planned search for gas in the Algarve sea had been “postponed with no new date."
"The research project is under review, with no date fixed for drilling," says an official source at Repsol Portugal.
The Repsol-Partex consortium was to start drilling 40 to 50 kilometres off the coast to the south of Faro in an area where, in the past, Partex has claimed huge gas reserves exist.
Repsol already operates a natural gas operation 50 kilometres from Portugal in the Gulf of Cadiz and has been keen to expand this find by proving reserves in Portuguese territorial waters.
As for the Alentejo consortium, the notoriously corrupt Italian State company ENI (which has 70% of the consortium) and Portugal’s ‘tickets for favours’ Galp will assess in 2017 whether it is worth drilling and whether it is worth continuing the battle against well organised anti-oil campaigners.
