Portuguese-Italian consortium ENI/Galp Energia is to spend up to €100 million drilling the first deep water exploration well in Portugal.
Off the coast of Sines, work should start either this year, or early 2016.
Talking in London, chairman of Galp Manuel Ferreira de Oliveira said nonetheless that the chances of success were “less than 20%”.
Even if oil is discovered, the well would be unlikely to go into production before 2025, he added, stressing that this multi-million euro exercise would serve to “establish whether there is in fact oil in Portugal”.
As the costs of drilling – given in US dollars rise almost by the day due to the dollar’s rise against the weakening euro – Macauhub website reports that this project is just “a small part of the overall Galp Energia investment plan, which despite the fall in oil prices remains essentially focused on the areas of research and exploration.
The group plans to spend between €1.2 billion and €1.4 billion per year between 2016 and 2019 – a downward review on the plan presented to investors last year when oil was priced at around 90 US dollars per barrel.
As of today, the price of oil has plummeted to 47.62 dollars per barrel.
