Portugal confronted with choice
between tourist and black gold
Drilling could undermine the
country’s natural charms.
By PAUL AMES 5/25/17, 4:52 PM CET Updated 5/26/17,
10:33 AM CET
LISBON — Portugal’s reputation as an oil producer has, so
far, been limited to the tasty green stuff you pour over salads and sardines.
That could be about to change.
The country may be sitting on untapped reserves of petroleum
and natural gas, some onshore but most beneath its extensive territorial
waters. There’s no commercial production yet but test wells indicate there’s
oil down there, perhaps plenty of it.
An aggressive drilling campaign could scare off tourists and
damage Portugal’s new reputation as a haven for green power.
The issue is creating problems for the Socialist government
of Prime Minister António Costa. It is wavering between the temptations of an oil
boom in what is still for the EU a relatively poor country, but it needs the
support of anti-oil political parties to stay in power. The powerful fishing
and tourist industries are teaming up with environmentalists to block drilling
while the oil and gas industry dangles visions of billions in revenues.
Surveys suggest the geology off the Portuguese coast closely
resembles that of basins off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada, which
currently pump out 170,000 barrels a day.
Reports of a leaked British study sent to the Portuguese
government in 2015 had the Lisbon media frothing over estimates of offshore
deposits worth €43 billion.
Such speculation may be premature, but the oil industry is
definitely interested in finding out if Portugal really does have vast, virgin
reserves on Europe’s doorstep.
Black gold
“The potential is there,” said Luis Guerreiro, exploration
and new ventures manager at Partex Oil and Gas. “Talk about value and volume at
the moment is speculative, but the studies and reports done so far on the
geology, the geo-physical and geo-chemicals aspects, indicate with a high
degree of probability that there are interesting deposits.”
Lisbon-based Partex is in a consortium with Spain’s Repsol,
Dallas-based Kosmos Energy and Portugal’s Galp to explore four blocks off
Portugal’s central west coast between Lisbon and Porto.
Another consortium, formed by Galp and Italian supermajor
Eni is looking for oil off the southern Alentejo and Algarve regions. Australis
Oil & Gas, from Australia, has exclusive rights to two onshore oil and gas
exploration concessions around the central towns of Pombal and Batalha.
Almost two in every 10 jobs are supported by tourists, many
attracted by Portugal’s pristine beaches and superlative seafood.
In a county that’s dependent on imports for 70 percent of
its energy needs, spends around $7 billion a year on oil and gas imports and is
only just clambering out of a decade of stagnation and recession, hopes of a
hydrocarbon bonanza might be exciting, but the mood is far from celebratory.
The prospect of prospecting off the country’s Atlantic
shores has provoked a wave of protests, which the government is finding hard to
ignore.
Much of the disquiet is focused on the risks to Portugal’s
tourism industry. Direct earnings from tourism brought in a record €11.9
billion last year, according to figures from the World Travel and Tourism
Council.
Almost two in every 10 jobs are supported by tourists, many
attracted by Portugal’s pristine beaches and superlative seafood.
“Tourism and oil just don’t mix,” says Manuel Vieira, a
spokesman for the Algarve Free of Petroleum Platform, a coalition of campaign
groups.
“Once this oil industry gets a hold in a place, things get
very nasty,” he said in a telephone interview. “There’s no way to provide
adequate protection for the coastline.”
Opposition to oil has been particularly intense in the
southern Algarve region — Portugal’s premier beach destination which attracted
7 million vacationers to its sun-soaked sandy shoreline in 2016.
Saying no to oil
Fishermen, local town councils and powerful tourism
interests have joined forces with environmentalists to call a halt to oil
exploration in the region. And in April, 67 Portuguese scientists published an
open letter to the government, calling for a halt to “prevent irreparable
damage to the economy, environment and communities.”
In December, the Socialist government rescinded contracts
allowing Repsol and Partex to explore off the Algarve’s south coast.
Concessions allowing Portuguese company Portfuel to look for oil onshore near
the picturesque Algarve towns of Tavira and Aljuzur were also canceled.
At the same time, however, the government has been promoting
investment in oil exploration elsewhere.
“Deep offshore hydrocarbon exploration and production is
another area where investment from U.S. companies is welcome,” Ana Paula
Vitorino, Portugal’s minister of the sea, said last September at a business
conference in Washington.
A first well could be drilled this year off the southwest,
she explained, adding “geological estimates show that it has the potential to
supply one decade of the country’s oil consumption.”
Socialist and Communist lawmakers joined forces with the
center-right opposition to defeat a Left Bloc proposal to ban the granting of
new concessions.
Ministers are tempted by the potential rewards of an oil
boom but are concerned about denting the green credentials of a country which
gets 57 percent of its electricity from renewables and last year proudly
announced it had run the grid entirely from green energy for four days. Costa
has said the economy should be carbon neutral by 2050.
Without a majority in parliament, Costa’s government depends
on support from the Greens and the anti-oil Left Bloc party, as well as the
Portuguese Communist Party, which wants oil exploration controlled by the state
rather than private companies.
In parliament this month, Socialist and Communist lawmakers
joined forces with the center-right opposition to defeat a Left Bloc proposal
“to ban the granting of new concessions for the exploration of hydrocarbons in
the national territory.”
Environmentalists and the oil industry accuse the government
of fudging the issue. The economy ministry declined to respond to repeated
interview requests from POLITICO and no ministers participated in the May 9
parliamentary debate. However, Socialist MPs insist the government is being careful.
“The state has
concluded contracts which have to be respected … but this Socialist government
won’t hesitate in imposing stringent environmental impact studies,” Socialist
Party legislator Carlos Perreira told parliament. “New contracts will have to
take into account the concerns of local people.”
Meanwhile, local authorities and protest groups have
launched legal actions which, combined with prolonged public consultation
processes and bureaucratic issues, have delayed drilling. Oil companies are
struggling to meet deadlines set in their contracts.
The government will have to decide soon whether to extend a
deadline for Galp and Eni to start drilling off the southwest coast.
Another factor could further defer any Portuguese oil boom:
the market.
Portugal’s deep offshore is a frontier zone with risks for
investors who still don’t know for sure how much crude is down there.
“When the oil price was at $100 a barrel, companies had more
appetite to take that risk,” said Guerreiro, the Partex exploration manager.
“Nothing has changed in terms of the geology, but companies have less appetite
for the risk because the price of oil is lower.”
Simulação: Três décadas de petróleo
pagam ao Estado 0,05% do PIB
“Valores irrisórios”. É assim que
Ricardo Paes Mamede, economista e um dos membros do movimento Futuro Limpo que
se opõe à exploração de petróleo, avalia as receitas para o Estado que resultam
dos contratos celebrados com as concessionárias.
Simulação: Três décadas de petróleo
pagam ao Estado 0,05% do PIB
Jorge Rui Peres Jorge
rpjorge@negocios.pt
26 de maio de 2017 às 16:32
A ideia de que encontrar e explorar petróleo em Portugal
poderia ter um impacto relevante para as contas públicas não tem adesão à
realidade, conclui-se de uma simulação construída a partir das condições
previstas num dos principais contratos firmado pelo Estado, o que envolve a
Galp e a italiana Eni para a exploração de petróleo na Costa Alentejana.
Com os actuais contratos de exploração, considerando os
preços actuais do barril de petróleo, produção semelhante à espanhola (dois mil
barris por dia) durante 340 dias por ano, e custos na média da experiência
internacional, permitiriam ao Estado português receber do consórcio
luso-italiano cerca de 3,2 milhões de euros por ano. Ao longo de trinta anos
seriam 96 milhões, ou seja, menos de 0,05% do PIB.
Os resultados foram apresentados sexta-feira, dia 26 de
Maio, numa sessão promovida pelo movimento Futuro Limpo, que nasceu em 2016
para se opor à exploração de petróleo e gás em Portugal, e defender que o país
aposte em energias renováveis.
Ricardo Paes Mamede, um dos responsáveis pelos argumentos
económicos do movimento, analisou os contratos firmados pelo Estado com os
vários consórcios (ENI/Galp; Repsol/Kosmos/Galp/Partex; Australis Oil & Gas
Portugal), concluindo que prevêem condições semelhantes e "pouco generosas"
para o Estado, em contraste com os benefícios que garantem às empresas.
"Estes contratos de prospecção e exploração de petróleo
em Portugal podem ser bastante lucrativos para as empresas em cenários
optimistas, e mesmo no cenário moderado [de preços e níveis de produção] são
lucrativos", diz Ricardo Paes Mamede, que no cenário central estima que
lucros de 33 milhões de euros por ano para o consórcio Galp-Eni. Já "para
o Estado, a receita é pouca, e além de que nos primeiros anos não receberia nada,
pois não há nada a receber enquanto o investimento não for recuperado pelas
empresas".
"Para termos uma ideia [melhor do que está em causa], a
receita anual para o Estado nos dois cenários simulados varia entre 3,2 e 64
milhões de euros por ano. Já o debate sobre escalões de IRS que está em curso
entre o Governo e o Bloco de Esquerda envolve entre 200 a 600 milhões de euros
anuais".
Perante estes valores, o economista não hesita: "Não há
nada que nos vá ajudar a diminuir a dívida publica ou dívida externa, ou a
financiar de forma significativa serviços públicos". "O retorno para
o Estado que é irrisório", reforça.
O movimento contesta outras dimensões dos contratos que,
dizem, foram firmados ao abrigo de um decreto-Lei de 1994 que não protege o
Estado e os contribuintes, nomeadamente não garantindo uma cobertura de seguro
sólida contra riscos de acidentes ambientais. E embora a probabilidade de um
acidente ser baixa, a baixa receita gerada por estes contratos nunca chegaria
para compensar os seus custos, defende o economista.
Correcção: Valor da receita anual no cenário optimista é de
64 milhões de euros e não 96 milhões de euros, como referido na versão inicial.
.webp)
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