Anyone dreading the prospect of oil drilling starting up on the Algarve/ Alentejo offshore will have breathed a sigh of relief over the weekend.
Hurricane Leslie’s ‘crash’ onto the west coast pretty much knocked conditions at sea for six, while Expresso has confirmed that oil company ENI accepts delay to its perennially-revised schedule now is inevitable.
The likelihood of drillship Saipem 12000 steaming up from the Canaries to start sinking a well 46 kms off the coast of Aljezur before ENI/ GALP’s licence runs out (once again) in January next year is zero.
But will this be an end to the threat?
Aside from rampant civic opposition, various court actions under consideration and dire warnings by environmentalists, scientists and most recently the secretary general of the United Nations (click here), the government has up till now be siding with the oil companies – if nothing else to avoid €4 million in compensation payments (click here).
So, what lies in store for 2019?
Civic group ASMAA – the Algarve Surf and Maritime Activities Association – that has taken out a class action against the government’s policy in the names of 42,000 people who signed a petition against exploration of any kind suggests the government “will do nothing to cancel the Aljezur well, and it’s possible that it is waiting to get through the 2019 election period (next October) to open the doors seriously to the exploration of fossil fuels in Portugal”.
Activists connected to Stop Petróleo Vila do Bispo are equally dubious. Writing over social media, Ana Carla Conceição warns: “The concessions are still valid, and the Minister of the Sea is still selling the country at bargain basement rates overseas.
“ENI and GALP may well request a new extension of their licence… There is a lot still that could happen”.
Or could it finally be that the people’s relentless battling has succeeded in wearing oil companies down?
Campaigners protesting outside Loulé court earlier this summer attest to having heard lawyers for the oil companies say “if this kind of opposition continues, our clients will pack up and go elsewhere”.
At risk of sounding subjective, that is exactly what populations, businesses and borough councils throughout the region and beyond will be hoping as wild seas pound the western coastline and Saipem 12000 remains safely at anchor in Las Palmas.
