A confused Government said today that it may rescind the oil prospecting contract on the Algarve’s land, awarded to Sousa Cintra’s Portfuel company, but has missed the deadline within which to act.
Sousa Cintra, (pictured) a local millionaire businessman, says he will continue with his 'exploration to extraction' concession contracts and wonders why there is "so much confusion."
The Chief Executive of Partex Oil and Gas, the company in partnership with Spain’s Repsol to drill and extract oil and gas off the Algarve’s coastline, has decided enough is enough and if the company is not made to feel welcome, there are plenty of other places that it can drill.
In a bitter commentary, CEO António Costa Silva (pictured below), showed clearly the vestiges of Portugal’s old regime where corporate power overcame popular opinion using a complicit government.
Protestors gathered on the Guadiana International Bridge today as close to 300 people joined the 'Pontes pelo Clima' Portuguese-Spanish anti-oil event organised by Algarve and Huelva pressure groups.
The cross border protest was organised by Tavira em Transição and Mesa del Rio in order to create links between like-minded Portuguese and Spanish environmentalists and to agree on common areas of concern in environmental protection and alternatives to the production and use of hydrocarbons.
Environmental associations, political parties and a multitude of other organisations have called for three demonstrations on 12 November in Lisbon, Oporto and the Algarve, in protest against the planned exploration and production of oil in Portugal.
"We know it is necessary to promote an energy transition in the country and to the current scenario, the climatic difficulties, international agreements, all this is contradictory to the exploration and production of oil in Portugal," said Ricardo Vicente from Peniche Livre de Petróleo, one of the organisations involved in the protests.
The smooth slide into the Chairman’s seat at Galp Energía by Paula Amorim was accompanied by calming words of tranquility from Chief Executive, Carlos Gomes da Silva, who assured the assembled press that Paula Amorim is fully aligned with Galp’s strategy which focuses on developments in Brazil.
"We will have a peaceful coexistence," said Gomes da Silva of the new chairman of the board, Paula Amorim who takes over from her father, Portugal’s richest man, Américo Amorim.
Algarve Oil - ASMAA reports on 'Preserving the Marine Environment' seminar (to which its representatives were not invited.)
On 19 October 2016, a team from ASMAA attended a seminar titled “Preserving the Marine Environment” organised by the Portuguese Port Authority of Portimão.
We not going to focus on the practical exercises of the 20th, but instead we will focus on our observations from the parts of the seminar that we attended, write ASMAA leader, Laurinda Seabra, who sounded the alarm by adding "What we realised, is that government is continuing with the oil and gas drilling process as if there are no objections from the general population."
The former minister in the ‘Great Algarve oil and gas give-away’ Jorge Moreira da Silva has been appointed a Director General of the OECD whose remit included the environment.
The Minister of the Environment under the Passos Coelho government will take up residence in Paris to head the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development department after leaving his political career with large question marks over his attitude, ability and ethics.
"Gas will replace oil” says oil company Partex but ASMAA says it is time that a People’s Referendum replaces the lies and half-truths that have characterised the government and the oil companies' joint push to ensure the Algarve becomes an oil and gas production zone.
The anti-oil campaign association ASMAA has called for an Algarve Referendum so see once and for all whether the local population wants to support an oil and gas industry in the region, onshore and offshore, or not.
