Jorge Moreia da Silva has read the various news reports about his signing the concession contract granting Portfuel the rights over 300,000 hectares of the Algarve and oil and gas deposits for 40 years.
The complaint from activists that has been picked up by national press and TV media is that Jorge da Silva refused to consider Portfuel as a contender (in fact it was the only contender) as it was a relatively new company with no track record in oil and gas exploration.
Three months later, just days before the fall of the Passos Coelho government, the then Minister for the Environment, Planning and Energy, inexplicably changed his mind, approved the deal with Portfuel and left office.
Jorge Moreia da Silva, (pictured) although no longer in a public position, has released a statement to the media today after his "surprise" at being singled out for allowing Portfuel to obtain the oil and gas rights for the Algarve when his own National Fuels Authority had advised against it.
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“Having been surprised and not having had an opportunity to answer any points raised in a Diário das Noticias article based on a TV news report by RTP, which truncated and misreported the decisions I made as Minister for Environment, Planning Planning and Energy, I would like to clarify the following:
1. The oil and gas prospecting and exploration sector - which must not be confused with extraction - has been dynamic but has had few results. About 20 contracts for prosoecting and exploration have been awarded in the last 10 years, the large majority under a Socialist government which were then progressed by the PSD-CDS coalition government. However, there are no extraction contracts.
2. The procedures for awarding the concession areas were transparent and always involved the publication of the details so anyone could apply. After the contract award, which I repeat was only for research and exploration and not for extraction, there is an ongoing evaluation by the State and then there may be, if the requirements are fulfilled, extraction.
3. In recent years, always at the request of the Directorate General for Geology and Energy (DGEC) and the National Fuel Markets Authority, (ENMC) and after evaluation and validation by the Secretary of State for Energy, I verified the minutes of some contracts including the Portfuel onshore contract covering the Algarve Basin. The contracts were signed by the DGEG and the TNGC and not by the Government member (ie, Jorge Moreia da Silva).
4. About the Portfuel process for the onshore contracts in the Algarve: the process of granting the Aljezur and Tavira exploration areas began in 2014 with the publication of notices to involve all stakeholders; I do not know of any DGEG reservations.
In all cases in which I was involved, there was keen scrutiny of services and the DGEG in January 2015 submitted to the Secretary of State the proposed allocation decision granting Portfuel the rights.
On 16 March 2015, the Secretary of State for Energy sent me a proposal for granting the concession areas to Portfuel. In the information that supported the proposal it is clearly assumed that Portfuel met the suitability requirements and had proven technical credentials.
Still, I decided in my order of 15 June 2015, which approved the proposal submitted to me by the DGEG and the ESS, that the contract would have to be granted subject to an Environmental Impact Assessment procedure in the case of extraction or the use of possible unconventional exploration techniques. (fracking)
The law at the time did not call for a mandatory Environmental Impact Assessment for the research and exploration phase or for hydraulic fracturing, so I compelled them to include it in the draft of the contract.
The award decision was formally adopted in June 2015 and not in September 2015. On 9 September 2015 - and not, as has been said, at the end of September – for my part this was business as usual in granting power to a decision already taken in June, a conclusion of the administrative proceedings.
My signature of the minutes, delegating the signing of the contract in TNGC, occurs on September 9 and not at the end of September.
The issues of integrity and technical capacity were assessed by the services which submitted the proposal for approval. I never met with Portfuel, nor indeed with any competitor to several concession processes, but my office was informed by DGEG that Portfuel said it would sue the State for administrative delays. So there had to be a decision and that decision, proposed by the services since all the technical and suitability issues had been secured, could only be positive.
We had no arguments at the time to derail these projects. But for the State, despite these disinformation campaigns, the current government hopes that in this, as in the other contracts, there is strict monitoring and compliance with all contractual rules.
5. I was also surprised that, in their eagerness to attack me politically the DN news and the RTP programme by Sandra Felgueiras, the circumstances of my former chief of staff - official and framework of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - already after my departure from government, and obviously without my having had any role in it, have been requested (matter what happens every day in public administration) to another public service - the TNGC."
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Anti-oil ecological group ASMAA was contacted to assess the contents of Jorge Moreia da Silva’s statement that seemed to say that he was only doing what his departments recommended.
Laurinda Seabra from ASMAA commented –
“In my personal opinion, Moreira da Silva speaks with a forked tongue … in his declaration to Diario de Noticias today he states that the concessions awarded to Sousa Cintra were only for exploration, and that only after an assessment and evaluation by the State will full operations then take place, giving the impression that the “contracts” signed are only for exploration, which is not true.
“He conveniently fails to highlight the fact that signed contracts cover all aspects of the fossil fuels operations, from exploration to full commercialisation.
“In my opinion this indicates that the process to move from exploration to the commercialising of exploration findings is just a matter of procedure - the rubber-stamping of permits and nothing more.
“Regarding the allegation that the signing of contracts was done by DGEG and ENMC, he conveniently fails to highlight the fact that contracts are signed under authorisation and appointment by the Minister (the Ministry is in charge of the ENMC and DGEG) and it would not surprise me at all if undue pressure had not been exerted on the ENMC and DGEG to sign the contracts – ie they could have been signed under duress on orders from above.
“During the adjudication process for awarding the contracts conducted by the ENMC it was found that Portfuel clearly did not meet the necessary requirements. This was overridden three months later by Jorge Moreira da Silva in his capacity as Minister. How does he explain that?”
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One things shines through this saga of claim and counterclaim, the Minister in charge now asks us to believe he was not in charge and that departments within his ministry said Portfuel was OK, so that was all right with him.
This was a major oil and gas concession covering 300,000 hectares of the Algarve's territory giving Portufuel the right to oil and gas for 40 years.
The fact that the former Minister appears to have been too busy to take much of an interest in the Portufuel contract either shows a dereliction of his duties as a public servant, or he is not telling the truth.
The TV report about Sousa Cintra and Portfuel starts at minute 23, after the short ad, and is in Portuguese on this link:
http://www.rtp.pt/play/p2283/sexta-as-9
