The Black Gold Of The Mastership

In the Jurassic period, i.e. up to 200 million years ago, the Mastership was an open sea. Nowadays, it is a mountainous region that extends from Castellón in Valencia to Teruel in Aragon. The Mastership is a literal translation for Maestrazgo, the region having taken its name from the order which once governed it - the Grand Master (Gran Maestre) of the Knights Templar.

During the period which followed the Jurassic, the Cretaceous, a formation in the Maestrazgo was buried up to a depth of almost four kilometres. At the bottom of the one-time open sea were tons and tons of organic waste. Pressure and heat that built up on the waste deposits from the burial caused the creation of what is called an "oil window". In 2002 oil found in the Amposta field off Vinaròs in Valencia (an oil field first discovered in 1970) was shown to be coming from the Ascla formation, the one that had been buried all that time ago. The Ascla, and its exact location is still being worked on, is the "mother rock" that opens the window to that oil, and as a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Santiago de Compostela has pointed out, the Maestrazgo, once upon a time, extended very much further than today's mountainous area: the waters around the Balearics form part of the Maestrazgo, the Ascla formation and all; oil and all.

This professor, José Ramón Bergueiro, is an expert on oil slicks. Because of his knowledge of sea contamination and pollution from oil, his is a voice that you would expect to be listened to. He is apparently awaiting a response from the national environment ministry to a contingency plan he has presented for the spilling of hydrocarbons in the Gulf of Valencia. He is someone who works to minimise risk, accepting that there is no such thing as zero risk. He is not someone who works to prevent oil exploration.

Professor Bergueiro is sure that there is oil in the waters off the Balearics. He believes that this oil would be profitable. He also believes that oil and tourism can co-exist. He is, therefore, something of a lone voice.

On the beach in Palma on Friday there was a performance by the association Balears diu no (Balearics says no) which involved the pouring of tar over one of the performers. The oil slick, of the type with which Professor Bergueiro is familiar, had arrived, if only symbolically. It was another performance designed to attract attention to the opposition to oil exploration, and this opposition, one has the impression, is all but total. Palma's mayor Mateo Isern was helping with the collection of signatures against the exploration. He is just one politician who is opposed. Another, Alcúdia's mayor Coloma Terrasa, has posted the "says no" legend to her Facebook page. Everyone's saying no, including President Bauzá.

Having what might be a dispassionate or even vaguely objective discussion about oil seems to be almost impossible. Minds are made up. Oil, just say no. Yet below the slick of all the naysaying that is floating on the political surface is an undercurrent of a different type of politics - ambition - or so it has been suggested. The revelation by the national minister for industry, energy and tourism, José Manuel Soria, that President Bauzá had said, in the course of what was a private telephone call, that he recognised that there was nothing the national government could do to stop the prospecting, has been interpreted as an attempt by Soria to undermine Bauzá. And why might he want to do this? Because there is a further suggestion that Bauzá has his eye on Soria's job. If you've wondered why Bauzá has been so high profile outside the Balearics recently, then here - possibly - is the answer.

For Bauzá, being able to oppose exploration (even if he knows that it can't be stopped), is a grand opportunity to demonstrate environmental credentials and to regain lost popularity in the Balearics, but if he is genuinely looking at Soria's job, then how could he reconcile this opposition with the exploration? As a minister responsible for industry and energy, Soria can't oppose it. If he were to, then he would almost certainly have to resign. The suggestion that Bauzá wants his job strikes one (strikes me at any rate) as being unlikely. 

But if there are certain games to be played by politicians rather than engaging in objective debate about the oil, games aren't being played by the ordinary people of the Balearics (and forget the celebrity, bandwagoning dissenters). Opposition in the Balearics is similar to that in the Canaries. The two sets of islands are being treated as though they were colonies for exploitation with no regard being paid to the lifeblood of tourism or to the environment. Understandable as this attitude is, the emotion of the opposition prevents dispassionate debate. Might it just be possible for oil, tourism and environment to all co-exist? No one in the Balearics seems inclined to even consider the possibility that they might.

Oil Politics: Balearics and Canaries

"It's all about the price of oil," lamented Billy Bragg. The oil men in the White House didn't give a damn, but one in particular gave enough of a damn to give the appearance of a justified, non-oil-driven adventure by bringing along whichever ally, irrelevant or not, he could. José María Aznar was such an ally. If he was then mocked for being "Tony's little friend", he must have been Bush's very tiny friend. All about the price of oil.

In 2002, a royal decree of the government of José María Aznar was finally approved and published in the Official Bulletin. It paved the way for oil prospecting off the coasts of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. It was a decree with the backing of Aznar, the then vice-premier, Mariano Rajoy, and the environment minister at the time, the now disgraced ex-president of the Balearics, Jaume Matas. 

For various reasons, this prospecting didn't happen. One was that the Spanish Supreme Court blocked Repsol's attempts to start exploration in 2004. This was after the government had changed and Aznar was no longer prime minister. But while the arguments over the exploration centred on the environmental impact, in the background were international political issues.

Following 9/11, the American Government moved to strengthen its relations with Morocco, and a free trade treaty was signed between the two countries. Morocco became the first African country to have such a treaty. This, however, was problematic for Spain. And the reason why was oil. Or the possibility of oil and to which country it might actually belong.

If you look at a map you will see that the Canaries lie off the coast of Morocco. Only a comparatively short distance to the south is the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Morocco claims sovereignty over Western Sahara, a territory which, under US-led pressure at the United Nations, Spain was forced to give up in 1975; the UN doesn't recognise Morocco's sovereignty claims. Exploration for oil off Western Sahara started, at the behest of the Moroccan Government, in 2002. It has since come to a halt, partly because of the lack of clarity over legal status. But the point is that oil fields which may or not exist off the Canaries could extend into territorial waters that are not Spanish and are either Moroccan or Western Saharan.

The trade agreement and cosier relationship between the US and Morocco were problematic for Spain because it needed (or would need) US support in any dispute over rights to oil. Was it all about the price of oil? Well, there are those who would argue that the only reason Aznar and Spain sided so strongly with Bush against Saddam wasn't so much to do with oil in Iraq but to do with oil in the Atlantic.

The international politics may have shifted since then, but the arguments are still the same, and they have been boiling up in the Canaries. An oil platform belonging to Cairn Energy sits in readiness for drilling work on behalf of Repsol to start this year. Aznar is no longer prime minister, but his one-time second-in-command is, and the Partido Popular administration has given the go-ahead to prospect for what could amount to 38 million barrels of oil a year.

Opposition in the Canaries has come from hoteliers and others in the tourism industry, from environmentalists and from local politicians in the regional government and at island councils. It is only really the Canaries business confederation that supports the national government in undertaking a venture which, for some in the Canaries, amounts to the islands being treated "like a colony" and being exploited against their wishes.

There is a much more tangled web surrounding the exploration off the Canaries than that to do with a subterranean sea mountain which runs from a location some 70 kilometres from the mainland at Cabo de la Nao to 45 kilometres off Ibiza. It is this mountain that has been designated for oil exploration. At one end is rare seaweed; at the other, in the waters near Ibiza, is posidonia sea grass, which is not unique to the Balearics but is otherwise also rare. The opposition to the exploration is as unified in the Balearics as it is in the Canaries, but it has a notable difference; the political leadership in the Canaries is not Partido Popular.

So, one has a situation in which the regional PP in the Balearics opposes the national PP. President Bauzá is against the exploration because of the potential harm that could be caused to tourism. Whether the opposition, in more general economic terms, is right is another matter. At least in the Balearics, though, there are no international politics to be concerned with other than those of a European Commission nature. And the EC, for one, needs convincing as to environmental safeguards. 

From Canary Yellow To Black Gold

Sixty kilometres from the coasts of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the Spanish energy company Repsol is to start prospecting for oil. The arguments that have raged over oil exploration off the Balearics (further away than in the case of the Canaries) are being repeated but are creating more of a fuss and more by way of potentially bad publicity.

The arguments do, though, put into perspective the situation with regard to prospecting in the seas between the Balearics and the peninsula. While concerns for the environment and for tourism are as pronounced in the Canaries as in the Balearics, the potential economic benefits are being expressed far more strongly.

Repsol believes that there is a high probability of discovering oil (if you accept that a 20% probability is high) and that exploitation of these "probable" oil beds would eventually realise the equivalent of 10% of Spain's total oil and gas consumption for at least 20 years. (How such a calculation can be made based on a 20% probability I'm not entirely sure, but then I am neither a geologist nor an oil expert.)

Were such production of oil to come to pass, then there would be a clear economic benefit. And there is another strong economic case for Repsol's activities, that of employment. The Canaries, despite an all-year-round tourism industry and despite, like the Balearics, having enjoyed a record tourism summer in 2011, suffer the second highest level of unemployment in Spain - 31%. A light has gone on in the head of José Manuel Soria who has said that this unemployment demonstrates that tourism is not sufficient and that more industry is needed. Soria, if you need reminding, is the national minister for industry and energy and also for tourism. He also just so happens to be a former president of the Canaries.

You might think that industry and energy should not be combined with a portfolio for tourism as well, as they have competing demands. There will doubtless be many who disagree, but I believe that in Soria, especially as he knows full well from his Canaries experience what tourism means in terms of real employment prospects, here is a minister ideally placed to balance these competing demands. Tourism does not exist in an island all by itself; it is part of the total economy, and that economy would be partially transformed by oil.

There is a further economic factor that has influenced national government's authorisation of the Repsol prospecting. The oil beds lie not far from the imaginary line between Spanish and Moroccan waters; indeed they probably cut across this line. The Moroccans are in favour of exploration, and the fear has been that if Spain doesn't seek to exploit what oil there may be, then Morocco could nab it all for itself. There may yet, at some time in the future, be some almighty row over who owns the oil, but for now there is accord. This political dimension distinguishes the Balearics argument from that in the Canaries; there is no argument about who owns what may lie in the bay of Valencia and towards the Balearic Islands. But the politics make it more urgent that Spain (and Repsol) get a move on.

The politics within Spain are another matter. It is a curiosity that the Partido Popular in the Canaries, the Balearics and Valencia have all voiced their opposition to exploration; curious, as you might believe that the PP would be more disposed to display economic and business pragmatism than other parties. The PP in the Canaries are none too impressed by national government having gone over their heads, but someone has to, and the oil would be in the national interest (and also in the interests of the Canaries if their diabolical unemployment rate could be tackled).

The prominence being given to the prospecting is where the bad publicity comes in, and it is bad publicity fairly and squarely of a tourist style. TUI, for one, has expressed its concern, and the bad publicity has mainly surfaced in Germany, causing fears that the Canaries will acquire a different sort of reputation, i.e. for oil, and one that runs counter to a general culture in Germany of environmental concern and for clean energy.

Notwithstanding these admittedly legitimate fears, I would reiterate a point I have made previously in the context of prospecting off Balearic waters, and this is that oil and tourism can co-exist, as they do in the likes of Trinidad and Tobago. National government is right to press ahead, and for this we have to thank the existence of a minister who "gets it" where a combination of industry, energy and tourism is concerned.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Tilting At Windmills: Balearics' oil exploration

When, a couple of years ago, I wrote an April Fool about oil exploration in the bay of Alcúdia, I hadn't foreseen that foolish fiction could so quickly come to imitate life. The bay itself may not become dotted with oil rigs operated by my make-believe oil-exploration company, Tonto S.A., but the waters around the Balearics could be the location for rigs and a battle over whether they should be there or not.

On the face of it, oil exploration anywhere near the coasts of the Balearics sounds insane. In terms of a visible blight, assuming they were to be that visible, they aren't much of an advert. Blots on the seascape are one thing, though; the environmental impact of exploration is another. Posidonia, for example, would be harmed, and I've recently written about the damage that is being caused to the sea grass by different man-made interventions. Posidonia is not, though, the only marine species that would be affected.

A couple of weeks ago, the Balearic Environment Commission, which is a part of the regional government's environment ministry, issued a report which identified 19 environmental dangers from exploration. These included the effects of noise and drilling on the likes of turtles and giant squid.

What is interesting is that the Commission, within the ambit of a Partido Popular regional government that one might think would be inclined to wish to pursue exploration with some vigour, speaks with almost total unanimity on behalf of its various constituents - other government departments, the Council of Mallorca and town halls - in being dead against exploration. Tempting though it may be to nuance this as a snub to an initiative driven by a socialist central government, the fact that virtually no one in officialdom supports exploration, and not therefore just the usual suspects of the environmental lobby, suggests that Madrid has got it badly wrong.

The PP is being consistent. Its then deputies from the Balearics, one of them the now president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Salom, brought a motion before Congress in February this year to have authorisation for prospecting revoked. The parliament's upper house, the Senate, did in fact attempt to revoke the authorisation the following month, only for Congress to reject this.

Oil prospecting between the Balearics and the mainland isn't in fact anything new. There are already well over 100 borings and wells that date back almost 40 years. None of them in the vicinity of Mallorca, at a 150 to 200 kilometre distance, are really that close, but the very prospect of closer prospecting plus the potential shipping of oil in large tankers concern politicians and conservationists alike, especially as the memory of the oil spill from the Don Pedro in Ibiza is still very much alive.

How different attitudes might be, though, were there genuine guarantees of oil riches in the seas near the Balearics, who can tell. It is the lack of such guarantees that makes it easy to reject exploration. But what if there were oil? And lots of it. An economy such as that of the Balearics, indeed that of Spain, with its over-reliance on tourism and construction, cannot afford to just dismiss the possibility. As has been said, and not least by the economics expert Douglas McWilliams at the ABTA Convention in Palma in October, nations that are commodity rich (and this primarily means oil and gas) are the economic winners of the future. The mere fact also that the Spanish Government prepared for a "shock" in terms of oil supply earlier this year by reducing the motorway speed limit should make those who are anti-oil think a bit harder.

The ambitions of the green lobby in Mallorca are that the island should come to depend more greatly on renewables. But the use of renewables remains only a tiny portion of the Balearics' energy provision. A plan to erect attractive windmills along the sea front in Playa de Palma is a nice idea, but it won't create huge amounts of energy. The piecemeal approach to renewables, though, is indicative of an almost total failure of central governmental policy in respect of energy. The drive to a "green economy" has, as a leaked government document suggested, been an economic nightmare, causing energy prices to rocket and jobs to be lost rather than created.

Oil is the antithesis of the green economy and the antithesis of sound marine conservation and, possibly, tourism. But oil might just be an economic saviour. And in the absence of a realistic energy policy, simply tilting at the windmills of oil exploration is no answer.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Spanish Congress gives oil exploration the go-ahead

The Spanish lower house, the Congress, has overturned the amendment of the upper house, the Senate, which would have denied permission for oil exploration in the seas of the Balearics, in particular Ibiza.

MALLORCA TODAY - Senate against oil exploration

The upper house of the Spanish parliament has revoked the central government's decree to authorise oil exploration that would bring prospecting close to the shores of the Balearics. Opposition to the plan for exploration has been considerable, on account of perceived threats to the environment and to tourism.

MALLORCA TODAY - PP opposes oil exploration off the Balearics

The Partido Popular has added its voice to those registering opposition to the permission given by central government for oil exploration to be conducted between the gulf of Valencia and the Balearics (Ibiza). The PP's opposition is on top of that of regional president Francesc Antich, the concerns being potential harm to the environment and tourism. There is also the spectre of the sinking of the Don Pedro merchant ship in 2007 which resulted in heavy oil spills, the closure of beaches and a negative impact on Ibiza's tourism.