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ARCHIVED - Morocco strikes oil off Spanish Island coast
Oil has been discovered less than 100 kilometres from the Canary Islands in Spain
A huge oil field with a potential of 1 billion barrels has been discovered off the coast of Agadir in southern Morocco, less than 100 kilometres from the Canary Islands.
British company Europe Oil & Gas will be responsible for first prospecting in the Inezgane area, which is about 175 kilometres northeast of the Canary island of La Graciosa, before moving on to the Tarifa coast, off the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.
The total area to be explored covers 11,228 square kilometres of the Atlantic Ocean, and the oil company will need to drill to a depth of between 600 and 2,000 metres to strike the oil.
Ironically, Spanish company Repsol prospected close to the area where Morocco has now discovered the oil between 2001 and 2014, but they gave up on the project, claiming the discovery had neither “sufficient volume nor quality” for future extraction.
Environmental concerns
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Spain has urged the Moroccans to be cautious in drilling for oil lest the project cause any environmental damage. The Ministry has vowed to “closely follow” the process and to remain “firm in defending the interests of Spain and faithful to the positions it maintains” in relation to Spanish waters.
While the government remains watchful, several environmental groups including Greenpeace, Ecologists in Action and WWF Spain have pointed to the enormous risk any prospecting on the high seas poses for the local fauna.
The head of fossil fuels at Greenpeace, Francisco del Pozo, has warned that an oil spill could be devastating for both Morocco and the Canary Islands.
“We must all be on alert and we must remember that Morocco also has climate commitments because we have all signed the Paris Agreement and Morocco is within the COP system,” Mr del Pozo pointed out.
Moreover, the Canary Islands live on desalinated water, and an oil slick could result in a devastating shortage for Lanzarote, Fuerteventura or Gran Canaria.
All of the organisations are in agreement that any oil discovered offshore, be it in Spain or Morocco, “has to stay where it is due to climate change” if countries are going to honour their commitment to keeping the planet’s temperature below 1.5 degrees.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
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