GALP/ENI and Repsol/Partex want their drilling licenses renewed for 2017 despite both consortia pulling out of drilling commitments earlier this year.

The Spanish and Portuguese oil companies suspended plans to drill off the Alentejo and Algarve coasts while the anti-oil associations, the public and the Algarve region’s mayors voiced fierce opinion about the legality of the concession contracts and the folly of the government’s insistence on becoming an oil producing country while at the same time pledging to reduce C02 emissions.

The following letter from an algarvedailynews reader will strike a chord with many in the Algarve who oppose oil and gas exploration on land and in the Algarve's immediate offshore areas.

The government's best response to date has been that the discredited fuels authority under Paulo Carmona will ensure the oil compaineis will proceed to drill 'with great care.' This comic position will ensure the region will be exposed to maximum risk.

Portugal’s Secretary of State for Tourism, Ana Mendes Godinho, has stated that the Government will ensure that any exploratory drilling and oil extraction along the country’s coast will be done carefully.

"Nothing will be done that threatens tourism, this has been the concern of the government ... in fact, the situation has been completely monitored by the government, nothing will be done in opposition to the population, hence the concern is that nothing will be done to undermine our wealth," said Godinho at Tuesday’s Portuguese Tourism Summit in Lisbon.

In a shock announcement in parliament yesterday, Portugal’s Prime Minister António Costa reported that the oil and gas exploration and extraction contracts signed by the former Minister for the Environment Moreira da Silva with Sousa Cintra of Portfuel have been declared perfectly legal by the Attorney General, hence there was no reason to annul them.

These two contracts are for oil and gas exploration across a large percentage of the region’s land mass, a development that has been objected to by tens of thousands of Algarve home owners and all of the council’s mayors who as one, united under the AMAL banner, already have lodged a legal case to get these contracts annulled.

The Secretary of State for Fisheries, José Apolinário, wants to double the turnover of the maritime economy, mainly through increasing the number of fish farms.

Apolinário addressed the Rotary Club of Praia da Rocha on Tuesday evening to explain the government’s position on all things maritime.

Anti-oil campaign group PALP has called for the public to attend an open debate this coming Saturday, 30th July about the government’s oil and gas exploration and extraction licensing off the Algarve coast.

Saying the debate could be another step forward in having the concession licenses declared void, or simply having them cancelled, the meeting Clube Farense, Faro at 9pm, will give members of the public the chance to question MPs from across the political spectrum on why things have got to where they are, why has there been so little public debate and what can be done to challenge the legality of the contracts now that they have been signed.

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.

Portugal’s President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, was in Loulé on Thurday, 21st July, to present a Municipal Medal of Honour to local author Lídia Jorge.

The ceremony took place at the Ciné-Teatro where mayor Vítor Aleixo said to Jorge, "This distinction is a small tribute for all that you have done for us," adding that, "Lídia Jorge is the expression and the feeling of a community."