Re: Letter ‘Advantages of offshore oil and gas industry in Portugal’

Dear Editor,
It still amazes me of the double standards some people seem to have with no conscience, Diana Wylde (whose letter was published on the April 11 issue of the Algarve Resident) in this case. Ms Wylde probably puts petrol and oil into her car, uses gas to enjoy a hot shower or do her cooking enjoying the benefits of the oil & gas industry which has come from oil wells drilled off someone else’s coast, as long as it’s not off her own coast. That’s a wee bit selfish is it not?
Her comments on her version of hell quite honestly saddened me and then angered me. Madam, I once did an oil job in Chad, central Africa, where I once witnessed a naked man sitting on top of a rubbish dump by the side of the road sucking on a piece of orange peel he had found. There were a couple of half starved feral dogs also scavenging among the rubbish. I sat back in my seat as I was being driven back to the airport and said to myself: “Now I know what hell is.”
That image has and will stay with me for the rest of my life.
But never mind the whole thing is purely academic anyway if they fail to discover any hydrocarbons worthy of exploitation off the Algarve, so in the meantime you can sit back in some beach bar Diana, relax and enjoy a nice cool glass of wine and think to yourself “I’m alright Jack”.
Regards,
Ian Sheppard
Environmental Service Engineer
Offshore Oil & Gas