Repsol has planned to "finish the first survey" at the so-called Sandía point on January 20 and, depending on the results obtained, will then determine whether to continue the prospecting or leave empty-handed. This was stated to La Voz by the company's spokesman, who states that the company has "planned to reach the final objective on January 12", at more than 3,000 meters deep, since they are currently "about 200 meters" from reaching it.
From there, "between January 12 and 20, the well will be sealed, with different plugs at different depths." The spokesman has stated that, once this happens, three possible scenarios can occur. The first would be that the result of the surveys "is positive", that is, that it determines that there are hydrocarbons at the Sandía point. In this case, a second survey would be carried out, this time at the Chirimoya point.
A second possibility contemplates that "the result is positive, but new tests are required, new analyses of the sampling". In this possible scenario, the ship would go to its next destination, Angola, "where it has to do exploration work and would postpone the next survey for a few months", explains the spokesman. During that time, laboratory analyses would be carried out to determine "if what is there can be extracted under commercial conditions or not". "If the conclusions are encouraging, a second survey would be carried out in this campaign. If the results are not encouraging, it is unlikely that an investment of more than 100 million euros would be made in a new exploration survey", clarifies the Repsol representative.
The third scenario would be that "the result of that survey is negative and therefore the ship goes to Angola and does not return to the Canary Islands". However, it will not be known which of these three possibilities has occurred "until January 20, at the earliest", according to Repsol.
These clarifications from the multinational oil company come just a few days after several media reported that Repsol had not found hydrocarbons off the Canary Islands and that, therefore, it would abandon its coasts imminently. In relation to these statements, the spokesman assured La Voz this Monday that "as of today it is impossible to advance what the result of the surveys will be." The company already denied last Friday that it was abandoning the surveys and the oil company's representative added this Monday that this information comes from "interested sources" and believes that "there will be more" rumors of this nature.
Among these "interested sources", the spokesman includes the Global Action Office of the Lanzarote Council, of which he says that "it gets in touch with the media spreading information that is false and knows perfectly well that it is".
