John WoodheadREADING one of the local newspaper websites, La Voz de Almeria, I noticed an interesting story about prospecting for oil off the Almerían coast.
Fossil fuel prices, especially that of oil, are reaching record highs these days. This has encouraged large multi-national groups to seek new oil exploration areas in an attempt to find new sources.
In recent months the Alborán Sea has become one of the strategic objectives of these companies. Requests for permits have been made to drill in the waters of the Alborán, in a strip off the Almería, Granada and Málaga coast.
So far there have been seven specific authorisations to search for both natural gas fields and oil. The first three licenses, the furthest away from Almería, have already been approved about a year ago and are covered by a project codenamed Siroco.
The remaining four applications, with the project name Chinook, were made in the second half of last year and approved by the Spanish Government on 23 December 2010. These four surveys are also in part of the Alboran Sea, closer to the coast of Almería.
The Siroco project surveys will be conducted by a subsidiary of Repsol called RIPSA (Repsol Investigaciones Petrolíferas SA), working in partnership with Gas Natural Exploracien SL. The Spanish company has a 60 percent stake in the joint company, while Gas Natural has the remaining 40 percent.
Investigations of oil and natural gas in the project dubbed Chinook will be conducted by CNWL Oil, a Spanish subsiduary of the multinational Canadian company Sherritt International. This company has been set up to develop future oil and gas exploration, among other functions related to the energy sector.
The plans of the companies that have obtained authorisation from the Spanish authorities envisage that the authorisation may be published in the Government Gazette during this month of February 2011. If so work could start in the first weeks of March.
Searching for oil and gas has been welcomed by both the Ministry of Industry and the Junta de Andalucía.
The beginning of the end…
Fred – why do you think this is so bad?
If oil or gas were found and it could be exploited then it would help the Spanish economy. Also it would help Europe to have access to oil and gas reserves direct from mainland Europe. Which I would have thought would be a good thing.
Yes, my lovely view out to sea might be spoiled a little by some oil rigs. However I think I could probably live with that.
It all sounds ok, until something goes wrong. I’d rather have the nice view and the environment put at less risk, thank you very much.
Spain cannot manage these resources in any event. It’ll just end up another halfway-house project with poor investment and no health-and-safety, and copious amounts of brown envelopes to placate various politicians and bypass various laws etc. So much for Spain being a world leader in solar power and new energy ideas lol. Back to fossil fuels they go in a whim.
When an oil slick destroys the Costas, Spain will quickly come to regret this decision. I just don’t trust them, and especially in light of many recent oil disasters.
And will oil and gas prices go down to help the consumer once this new fuel resource is exploited? lol, yeah right.