Thousands of protestors today lined up on Tavira island to form a human chain that stretched for an estimated three kilometres
Organised by 'anti-oil and gas' protest group Tavira em Transição, the event was covered by most of Portugal's major news channels and comes just days after the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa made light of questions about the region’s oil and gas contracts while on a visit to Loulé.
The president said last Thursday that there was as much likelihood of finding oil in the Algarve as there was of him going to the moon. This flippant retort avoided the question of gas exploration and extraction as the president knows there are substantial reserves off the Faro coast.*
Angela Rosa, the eloquent and focussed head of Tavira em Transição was interviewed on the beach by TV media today and brought the gas question to the fore by suggesting figures for those suffering from cancer were at a European high in the Huelva area where Repsol has a huge gas processing plant serving the bay of Cádiz gas fields.
Repsol, with partner Partex, has the oil and gas concession for a large exploration block to the south of Faro.
Repsol’s Max Torres, at an investors briefing in January 2014, stated that the company had discovered a major gas field off the Algarve coast with an estimated half a trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas, sufficient to address Portugal's needs for “at least 15 years.”
Angela Rosa also told reporters that the area to the south of Tavria was a sensitive area and prone to earthquakes and that gas processing has no place in the Algarve, teh Huelva public already was suffering from a high incidence of cancer, and that The Algarve should be concentrating on renewable energyand tourism.
Tavira em Transição, a deeply committed anti-oil and anti-gas pressure group, wants the government to withdraw from the oil and gas contracts as these are not ‘in the public good’ and represent an unquantifiable risk to a region, happy with and dependent on, tourism.
* See: 'Portugal's President says oil discoveries in the Algarve are 'unlikely''
For the SIC Noticias report on the Tavira event (in Portuguese) see:
http://sicnoticias.sapo.pt/pais/2016-07-24-Protesto-contra-exploracao-de-petroleo-no-Algarve
