The “unthinkable” is suddenly looking like the inevitable. Despite all the protests, the fine words by local leaders, the petitions, the court bids and the articles in the press alluding to lies, collusion and institutional chicanery, preparations for exploratory drilling off the coast of Aljezur are thundering forwards.
The tabloid press started the week with a centre-page spread on logistics in place, stressing that “the probability of finding oil is below 20%”.
Like so much in this struggle, even that was possibly an expedient truth: it’s not oil that is thought to be lying in substantial reserves off the pristine Vicentina coastline, it is natural gas – and energy companies GALP and ENI appear determined to tap it.
Only a few weeks ago, after climate change activist and journalist João Camargo accused ENI of lying about depth-soundings taken off the coast last summer when a court embargo on activities connected with exploration was in place and should have precluded any such intervention, the Resident was contacted by Galp’s “corporate communication”.
The source said we had raised “a number of issues, including of illegal action by the consortium”.
GALP wanted to make it clear, he said, that it has always acted within the law.
With the accusations actually against GALP’s Italian partner, ENI, the conversation ended with the agreement that we would send GALP questions, which we duly did, three weeks ago.
As we went to press on Wednesday, we tried corporate communication for the answers, to be told the questions had not even been sent forwards as “everything has to go through ENI, and they do not like to talk”.
Thus we have reached the ‘witching hour’: the moment when winter seas are calming and everything is in place for drilling which looks likely to start almost as soon as the ‘public consultation process’ – to decide whether or not an environmental impact assessment should go ahead pre-drilling – has closed on April 16.
As many commentators have already complained, it seems “ridiculous” that a vast drilling platform capable of housing 200 people in quite substantial luxury while making holes in the seabed of up to 3,500 metres deep should not need an environmental impact study before starting work – but even the government has shown itself prepared to waive this requirement, and as it is a government agency that will rule on the issue, no one is holding out much hope.
Eco-warriors, meantime, are planning protest after protest, the largest of which will converge in Lisbon on Saturday, April 14.
Says the anti-oil ‘platform’ known as PALP, “it’s time to end, once and for all, with the threats of drilling in Portugal. The strength of populations, movements, mayors, united in one voice saying ‘no’ is a war that will be heard.
“Because we need to stop consuming fossil fuels, stop investing in an obsolete industry pushing us towards an abyss, we say ‘no’.
“Because we need to preserve our coastline and our interior, safeguard our biodiversity from the catastrophic pollution of gas and oil, we say ‘no’.
“Because we have to halt climate change and can only do so by definitively stopping from exploiting and burning hydrocarbons, we say ‘no’!
“Let’s bury this drill site, get rid of all the contracts and push towards a future with clean energies.”
PALP is taking reservations for its bus to Lisbon on April 14, which leaves Loulé at 10am, returning after the 3pm demo has wound its way from Praça de Camões and demonstrated outside parliament.
Before that, on Monday (April 2), the Algarve’s first anti-oil group MALP has called a vigil for outside Faro Town Hall at 4.30pm, citing the “indecent silence” of the government which weeks since the region’s mayors requested an ‘urgent meeting’ has yet to set a date.
“What are the Algarve’s mayors doing to stop this hedonistic political crime of handing over the Algarve in return for nothing,” queries the group, stressing the recent ‘shock revelation’ that the government has actually been subsidising energy companies with hundreds of millions of euros for years.
The bulk of subsidies has been paid to Italian’s ENI, said reports, which have seen political journalist and expert in economic affairs, Francisco Sarsfield Cabral, take to print under the headline: “Another hammerblow for the Algarve”.
“If it was already odd to subsidise fossil fuels at a time when the priority assumed by the Portuguese government is to accelerate the transition to renewable energies, the situation becomes absurd when who most benefits is a foreign State,” he says via Rádio Renascença’s website.
The question really is, can these voices of reason – the self-appointed ‘upholders of good sense and practices’ – change a process that seems to have been engineered to succeed?
Eco-warriors are determined that they can. Lagos saw them out in force last week, in the first “Keep it Blue” demonstration powered by regional surf schools and maritime businesses.
“We are not going to stop until we accomplish our goal,” affirmed organiser Ana Carla Conceição of Stop Petróleo Vila do Bispo. “We want to keep the sea blue and free from risks of spills and contamination.”
By NATASHA DONN natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
Photo: The first “Keep it Blue” demonstration powered by regional surf schools and maritime businesses took place in Lagos last week
