There is widespread opposition to prospecting in the Balearics.

There is widespread opposition to prospecting in the Balearics. | PERE BOTA

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma21/11/2015 00:00
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The Balearic Environment Commission is once more applying pressure to have oil prospecting stopped. At a meeting on 30 November, its president, Antoni Alorda, will present a demand to the national environment ministry that it halts the process from 2011 whereby Schlumberger can conduct surveys in the Gulf of Lion between Catalonia and the Balearics. Alorda will also request a meeting with Guillermina Yanguas, the director-general of environmental quality and evaluation. The Balearic commission is, therefore, adding to the request by the Alianza Mar Blava that the process be archived (stopped, in other words).

Alorda believes that the process was irregular and that the company - Schlumberger - has two such processes for the same project, one from 2011 and the other from 2014, which suggest irregularity. In the event that the process is archived, the process, Alorda notes, would have to be started again and would have to be open to public consultation through which challenges could be made: something very important, given the opposition to oil prospecting in the Balearics.

The project was started four years by the company Seabird Exploration and was then replaced by Schlumberger, who followed the same process from 2011 but also opened another in 2014 for the same purpose. The latter of these included an acoustic impact report. According to administrative procedure, there cannot be two processes with the same objective.

Alorda is confident that the national ministry’s decision will be favourable to the Balearics. Recently the Scottish-based  company Cairn Energy announced that is was going to halt its prospecting operations in Balearic waters, despite having been granted permission by the previous socialist government, as pressure against prospecting in Spain and from international organisations mounted. But now, Alorda wants a total ban.