PN spokesperson for energy and enterprise, Mark Anthony Sammut, said that nothing is being done in Malta to encourage oil exploration.

He was reacting to an answer given to a parliamentary question by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, who revealed that there are currently no active licences to search or drill for oil in 2022.

Since the year 2000, there have always been at least two active licences, until 2022.

Sammut also asked about the kind of concessions that were given, to whom they were given and where they were given.

It was revealed that 11 licences have been granted since 2000.

Sammut took to Facebook to say that since 2013 only 2 licences have been granted, whilst between 2000 and 2013 9 licences had been granted.

Sammut responded to this news by saying that whilst “all European and Mediterranean countries have increased licenses for gas and oil drilling, the opposite happened in Malta.”

Besides these statistics, he said that Malta is still the only country that does not recognise geologists as professionals.

Also, he said that Malta is the only country that does not make the data that has been collected from past explorations accessible to the public so that it can be studied by those who are interested in identifying the best places for new explorations.