The ENI/Galp consortium continues to refuse to disclose the waiver document for the oil prospecting and exploration contracts off Aljezur, despite the Algarve Livre de Petróleo Platform (PALP) having requested that it be attached to the process currently taking place in court.
One day before the concession contract between the Portuguese State and the two oil companies expires, on 31 January, anti-oil exploration and exploration activists in the Algarve denounce the reluctance of both the concessionaire and the Government to reveal the document of renounce to the Title of Private Use of Maritime Space (TUPEM) and demand that there is no place for any kind of extension of the concession.
PALP considers it "unacceptable" that, "after persistent requests, both the Government and the concessionaires refuse to publish the document".
«Once again, today, January 29th, we learn about the concessionaires' response to the Administrative and Fiscal Court of Loulé, where they only reaffirm that the contract ends on January 31st, without clarifying in what respect this information inhibits publication of the letter», accuses the platform.
"They also make a point of "respectfully" remembering that the PALP can, within the scope of the ongoing judicial process, always opt out of the process at any time, if it considers that there is no longer a case for the court", they add.
«At the end of October, the media made it known that the ENI/Galp consortium was giving up operations in the face of opposition from civil society, both politically and judicially.. The minister of the Environment and Energy Transition, on the same day, made public that “the ENI/Galp consortium presented today, 29 October, a letter requesting the waiver of the contract for prospecting, research, development and production of oil for the areas called Santola, Lavagante and Gamba”», recalled the PALP.
But, they say, a communication from the Office of the Secretary of State for Energy indicated "that "the resignation of Galp and ENI has not yet produced the legal effects for which it was intended", which contributes to thickening suspicion and confusion regarding the real existence of this of office and as to the effective waiver of the contract».
“The PALP thus denounces the clear withholding of information both within the scope of public knowledge and what good practices of transparency and integrity should be by democratically elected officials, as well as within the scope of a legal process that takes place in court. It is not conceivable that the Government persists in its collusion with the oil companies, in what concerns the lack of information and that it does not put into practice all the declarations that have been made public that it is intended a turn of Portugal towards renewable energies and the abandonment of oil prospecting”, concluded the Algarve Livre de Petróleo Platform.
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