The licenses and concessions map, published on the website of the National Entity for the Fuel Market, was updated yesterday, Thursday, having disappeared the exploration areas of the Repsol/Partex consortium south of the Algarve coast, found the Sul Informação.
The four areas previously assigned to the Repsol/Partex consortium – Lagosta, Lagostim, Sapateira and Caranguejo – are no longer on the updated map, as can be seen in the image published here.
The disappearance of the four oil and gas prospecting and exploration contracts in the Algarve sea, concessioned to Repsol and Partex Oil and Gas, the oil company of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (compare the two maps we have published), is being welcomed by the movements that have been taking place. fought against the exploitation of hydrocarbons in Portugal, on land and at sea.
O Climáximo, a movement for climate justice, despite being happy with the good news, says it remains "committed to canceling the prospecting hole off Aljezur and the other concessions."
Yesterday, Galp's executive president, in statements to the “Jornal de Negócios”, said that everything is ready to proceed with the drilling off Aljezur, with the exception of state authorizations. “The externalities of any economy are impacted by the time taken to make decisions. I have nothing more to say», said Carlos Gomes da Silva.
Last February, the president of the national oil company had already said that it was possible to start the well between the months of April and June. But the lack of authorizations by the central administration entities and the challenge that has been made, by the local authorities and the population, with the Government, may mean that the ENI/GALP consortium project does not go forward either, as happened with the concessions of PortFuel de Sousa Cintra and now those of Repsol/Partex.
In its statement, Climáximo considers that the confirmation of these cancellations "represents an important victory for the dozens of movements that protect the sea and the coast from the oil companies' endless thirst for oil and gas."
«After the announcement, last December, of the cancellation of concessions on land in the Algarve, belonging to Portfuel de Sousa Cintra, the cancellation of concessions at sea is yet another step forward», considers that movement.
However, he warns, “these cancellations cannot be imagined as a bargaining chip, nor as a calming factor for the movement against oil and gas exploration in the country: we will do everything possible to stop the Aljezur borehole and the continuation of the concessions of the Alentejo Coast, from the Peniche Basin and on the west coast to Porto».
Climáximo warns: «we will continue the fight against fossil fuels as the only possibility to stop the rise in the planet's temperature above 2 degrees Celsius and also as people and collectives that defend the oceans and territories against the destructive extractivism that devastates geological systems, biological, economic and social'.
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