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LISBON
Discoveries monument
Brief history of the country
Portugal (the Portuguese Republic) on the Iberian Peninsula is the westernmost country of mainland Europe. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean on the west and south, and Spain on the north and east.
The region was settled by Celts after 1000 BC and other tribes who traded with Phoenicians and Carthaginians before incorporation into the Roman empire in 45 BC. In 410 Germans invaded, setting up the Kingdom of the Suebi. They were followed by the Visigoths.
In 711 the Moors took the south, establishing it as part of the Umayyad Caliphate. Replaced by the Emirate of Córdoba until 1031, it split up before being conquered by the Almoravids from Morocco. In the north Christians retained power and in 1139 began to recover all of Portugal.
By 1383 the whole country was ruled by the House of Aviz who built a global empire. Spain intervened from 1580 to 1640, after which the House of Braganza took over.
Destruction of Lisbon in an earthquake in 1755, invasion by Napoleon in 1807, and the independence of Portuguese Brazil in 1822 led to economic decline. In 1910 the monarchy was deposed and a series of dictators ruled. In 1974 the Carnation Revolution restored democracy and the empire was dismantled.
Portugal's economy then expanded and it joined the EU in 1986. Its last overseas territory, Macau, was handed over to China in 1999.
Oil and gas summary
Portugal on the Iberian Peninsula includes 2 archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean; Madeira and the Azores both with their own governments. Mainland Portugal is divided in two by its main river, the Tagus that flows from Spain. The north of Portugal, north of the Tagus, is mountainous whilst the south is rolling plains.
Portugal has no identified indigenous oil or gas resources. A number of wells have been drilled onshore since 1949 and offshore, in the shallow waters of the Atlantic margin, since 1974 (although none offshore since 1995).
The main sedimentary basin in Portugal is the Lusitanian Basin which has been the site of over 100 wells, mostly onshore. It has similarities to the Jeanne d’Arc basin in Canada but with less Cenozoic cover and late compression from Alpine events. No discoveries have been made possibly due to breaching of potential reservoirs.
Other basins offshore Portugal have been barely explored. They mostly underlie deep waters and probably have the same drawbacks as those of Lusitania. Due to the lack of success the country is not forecast by Globalshift to achieve any oil or gas production in the short or medium term future.
The highest point is Mount Pico on the volcanic island of Pico at 2,351m in the Azores archipelago, straddling the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The other Portuguese archipelago, Madeira, lies above a hotspot in the Atlantic plate. Neither island groups have suitable geology for hydrocarbon accumulations.
Portugal is a significant importer of gas by pipeline from Algeria and also imports and re-exports LNG.
PORTUGAL
Map and National Flag
Southern Europe
Capital
Population
Land area (sq kms)
Oil prod (000s b/d)
Gas prod (bcm/yr)
Oil cons (000s b/d)
Gas cons (bcm/yr)
Lisbon
10.7 mm
92,090
None
None
243
3.2
Government
Portugal is a semi-presidential democratic republic. The President is head of state, advised by a Council of State. Parliament is unicameral.
The Prime Minister is head of government and of a 230-member Assembly elected for a 4-year term. In 1986, Portugal joined the EEC, later becoming the EU.
The Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning and Energy oversees the oil and gas industry in Portugal.
The Galp Energia Group is a part state-owned integrated energy corporation consisting of over 100 companies.
These include SACOR, an oil company operating in the colonies since 1954, and PETROGAL, formed in 1976 from SACOR and 3 other companies. These had been nationalized following the 1974 revolution. Galp was partially listed in 2006.
Geology and History of Exploration
Portugal lies on the western side of the Iberian Peninsula, a Hercynian cratonic block known as the Iberian Massif. The Massif is bounded by Alpine fold belts of the Pyrenees in the north and the Betics in the south, both located in Spain. To the west off Portugal the peninsula is delimited by a continental boundary formed by the opening of the Atlantic Ocean.
In the north of Portugal are outcropping and thrusted Palaeozoic metamorphic rocks. In the south the South Portuguese Zone (SPZ) is an exotic terrane that came from Laurasia and was attached to what later became the Grand Banks in Canada. This continent was to the north of Iberia but now forms a thin triangle of Upper Devonian to Carboniferous metamorphic rocks on the south end of Portugal.
In central Portugal and offshore the Iberian Massif is buried by Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments. The Lusitanian Basin covers much of central Portugal partly onshore and partly offshore, limited on the east by the Iberian Massif.
The basin is a Mesozoic rift basin that opened in the Late Triassic and developed into an open marine carbonate shelf in the Jurassic. It was covered by westward-prograding siliciclastics during the latest Jurassic and Cretaceous as the North Atlantic opened. It was then subjected to transpression during Tertiary Alpine events. Although many wells have been drilled in the Lusitanian basin only oil and gas shows have been encountered and structures are generally breached.
Other basins off Portugal are less well explored. Off the northern coast of Portugal is the Porto Basin, elongated in a north-south direction which formed at the same time as the Lusitanian basin. West of a ridge of shallow basement (to the west of the Lusitania basin) is the Peniche basin containing deep water turbidite deposits. It has similarities to the Jeanne d'Arc basin in the Grand Banks of Canada but with a thin Tertiary overburden and much greater water depth. No wells have been drilled.
Off the south of the country are the Alentajo, Sagres and Algarve basins. These have thick sections of Triassic (including salt), Jurassic, and Lower Cretaceous sediments also similar to the Jeanne d'Arc basin. Only two wells have been drilled in the Alentejo Basin, one on the eastern flank penetrating a thick Mesozoic carbonate platform and the other within a submarine channel system that bypassed the platform to deposit deepwater turbidites.
The Sagres basin has a thick, untested section of siliciclastic and carbonates whilst the Algarve basin is a continuation of the Guadalquivir basin in Spain where biogenic gas fields are producing from Upper Miocene and Pliocene turbidites. Unlike in Jeanne d’Arc, all these basins have a Tertiary compressive overprint that may have disrupted potential traps.
Along the Atlantic continental margin, between the continental and oceanic crust, there is a 100 km wide zone of exhumed continental mantle which was uplifted during rifting of Newfoundland from Iberia and then further offshore is the Tagus Abyssal Plain of oceanic crust.
History - Surface oil seeps and asphalt occurrences were identified in central Portugal within the Lusitanian basin in the 19th century and asphalt and bitumen have been mined at several locations.
The basin was the site of periodic oil and gas exploration activity since the late 1930s. Early shallow drilling focused on salt-related surface structures associated with oil seeps. Oil shows and minor oil recovery was reported but no commercial production could be established. Onshore drilling ceased in 1963 and did not resume until 1981.
In 1969 international companies began regional seismic, gravity, and magnetic surveys offshore and concessions were awarded in the early 1970s, leading to the drilling of 19 wells through to 1982 but only 3 wells have been drilled since then. Oil and gas shows were recorded and live oil was recovered from 2 wells but no commercial oil or gas fields were identified.
Mohave Oil and Gas commenced a study of the oil and gas potential of onshore Portugal in early 1992 and acquired 3 onshore licenses in the northern part of the basin in 1993 and 2 additional licenses in 1997. Four wells were drilled but no discoveries were made.
In 2002 the government offered 14 deepwater blocks for exploration and production contracts. After the licensing round expired only Repsol-YPF, in partnership with RWE, made bids for Blocks 13 and 14. In 2007 Petrogal (Galp) licensed 3 deep water blocks in the Alentejo basin with Petrobras. Petrobras relinquished its rights in 2014 which were taken by ENI.