Oil and/or gas reserves off the Algarve's sun-kissed shores may be higher than in the Gulf of Cadiz, according to oil company Partex which intends to start drilling in October or November this year.
António Costa e Silva, president of Partex which is in partnership with the Spanish giant Repsol, has offshore oil and gas exploration and extraction rights along the Algarve’s coast.
Costa e Silva remains downbeat at the international market, "the price of oil has to help us," he warns, "the price situation is very depressing," but adds, that "things are going as planned" and that the "seismic surveys already have been done about 40 kilometres from the coastline.”
"There is a clear geological continuity with what we see in the Gulf of Cadiz," added the Partex president who failed to mention that any oil or gas found off the Algarve coastline will be piped or shipped to Huelva in Spain where it will be processed, stored and distributed.
Partex, whose holding company is registered in the Cayman Islands for tax planning purposes, remits 100% of its profits to the Caluoste Gulbenkian Foundation which in turn supports social and arts projects in the UK and Portugal while studiously avoiding the issue of turning the Algarve’s onshore and offshore into an oil production zone with attendant risks to the population, the economy and ecology of the region.
Partex claims to have spent USD15 million over the past four years, with a planned spend of USD40 million if it gets to the drilling stage, explained António Costa e Silva in carefully timed press announcement to show how much these oil companies have been spending on research.
Even Sousa Cintra, the owner of Portfuel which was granted both of the onshore concession blocks that cover most of the Algarve, commented, "We are making investments, these studies cost a lot of money."
The Italians are spending a USD70 million of the Alentejo coast, the list goes on as the oil companies continue their positive PR campaign to persuade us all that they are investing in our futures.
The Algarve of course has woken up to the environmental threats to the region and its tourism industry with the support of the region’s mayors and business associations.
The oil companies have not been able to explain to, nor convince the Algarve and Alentejo populations that oil is a good thing, for two reasons: the money and the risk, but they care little for either as Big Oil managed to get the deals done behind closed doors with the last government happy to sign away oil exploration and extraction rights without informing those affected and without Environmental Impact Assessments.
The Algarve will not benefit financially from an oil business as none of it is planned to be based here, indeed Repsol has admitted it will be processing in Spain.
The risk of oil spillage, accidental discharge, noise pollution, visual impact and contamination of the Algarve's underground water supply is too much for tourism business owners and locals to contemplate after 50 years of work to create a tourist region currently among the best in the world.
