The new Centre for Oil Knowledge has been set up to define and describe the oil industry, to look at Portugal’s geology and to act as a research resource for students and engineers.
The new centre is being promoted as a ‘technical-scientific support infrastructure’ whose primary mission is to 'explain the conservation and development of hydrocarbon resources with reference to the country's heritage and the Portuguese people.'
The Knowledge Centre, funded by the Entidade Nacional para o Mercado de Combustíveis (ENMC) is gathering eight decades of prospecting and exploration information with thousands of technical and scientific reports, maps and geological profiles, geophysical reports, geological and geochemical data and acres of processed and interpreted data from the Portuguese sedimentary basins collected by the various companies which have been operating in Portugal over the years but which have never been successful.
'Permanent and immediate access to geological materials and geochemical and geophysical data will allow the state not only to provide an effective response to requests for information, either from universities or from the oil industry, but also aims to attract new investments through the re-use and reinterpretation of existing data,' runs the press release.
In order to contribute to the promotion of scientific literacy in elementary and secondary education students, the Entidade Nacional para o Mercado de Combusteveis is supporting the development of actions and projects under the "Living Science" banner.
'Centred on the themes of petroleum geology and fossil fuels, whose domestic supply is very low, the Centre for Oil Knowledge is a resource that through partnerships with schools and universities will enable the development of Experimental Sciences.'
This is all part of a new public outreach mission from the national authority, still smarting from its venture to the Algarve in January when its President, Paulo Carmona, was unable to get his message across that oil and gas exploration was a good thing for the Algarve and for the national economy, that the oil companeis can be trusted to act responsibly and that they will clear up any mess.
Faced with 300+ members of the public and the media at the Algarve University’s Health Education conference auditorium, Paulo Carmona and executives from Repsol, ENI, Galp, Partex and Portfuel, withered under fire and have said little of note since.
Meanwhile public opinion in the Algarve has gravitated to an anti-oil position, backed by the region’s mayors, business associations and tourism bodies after prolonged pressure and information from campaigning organisations such as ASMAA and, latterly, Palp.
The new centre for promoting oil and gas exploration and getting schoolchildren immured in hydrocarbon science may in due course be turned into a museum to an industry that has tried for decades to develop an oil business in Portugal but so far has failed.
