Dear Sir,
When I wrote my tongue in cheek letter to you on Tuesday poking fun both at our Madrid politicos (Oil Prospecting) and local (Conference Centre) I never thought they’d show their true colours only 2 days later (Daily Bulletin on Thursday).
I’m not sure whether to be sorrier for the anti explorationers in the Canaries (who must feel muffed that prospecting is going ahead there while absolutely prohibited here) or our anti explorationists here (who must be increasingly doubting the assurances on these self-same parliamentarians).
Repsol is to provide a €60 million fund there for environmental risk which implies that there are risks, a sum not required here as not the slightest risk is to be tolerated. In passing our politicians typically shows again a lack of knowledge in their decision making as this apparently gigantic sum is less than 1% of the cost of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico – the one everyone quotes over offshore oil.
By coincidence the same type of double speak about the Convention Centre appeared on the same page. We were informed that the project is “on track” by which they mean that it hasn’t really started but it will in September after the Consortium comes back from their more urgent month’s holiday.
When they go on to state that the Centre will be 100% up and running then they do not mean operating or even open but at least 200 men will be on site. No mention is made of King Felipe VI marking his dairy for 31/12/14 nor even 30/06/2015 for the state opening. In my Tuesday letter I offered odds of 10/1 against either completion date and on boom oil production not being blocked. I have had no takers. With this latest news I am now confident to double those odds to 20/1.
Mike Lillico
Playa de Palma