Good news today from Portugal’s minister of energy and environment who only a month ago suggested the country was close to declaring an energy crisis.
As Maria da Graça Carvalho explains today, that was because of the “very rapid increase” at the time of natural gas.
Now that this has eased somewhat, the minister believes – for the moment at least – that the country is “a long way” from meeting the criteria in which an energy crisis could be declared.
Speaking to journalists as she left a conference on environmental engineering at the University of Porto today, the minister added that the European Commission is preparing temporary regulations to help sectors most exposed to the rise in the costs of energy.
The commission has an informal meeting with heads of governments scheduled for later this month (April 23 and 24), and has already sent Portugal a public consultation exercise on the initiative, so that even if, eventually, the country approaches ‘energy crisis criteria’, “everything is being prepared” to help mitigate the fall-out.
It was on March 20 that Maria da Graça Carvalho warned the country was “close to the criteria” for declaring an energy crisis. But, she explains, her comments came in the aftermath of the attack on Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas plant. Since then, the price of gas has stabilised, and even the price of a barrel of crude has fluctuated down, then up again, and now is looking better considering negotiations between Iran and the United States (aimed at ending the conflict) are ‘back on’ for next week.
“Let’s hope that these negotiations will be successful”, said the minister. “If we can reach an agreement and there are no issues with the territories within a reasonable timeframe, we will manage to avoid a crisis.”
source: LUSA
