In his letter Geological Studies (September 17, 2012), Anthony Rizzo, CEO of the Malta Resources Authority, made a scathing attack on my research and presentation at the Malta Council of Science and Technology, which, he claimed, prejudiced Malta’s sovereign rights. Rizzo speculates that my research is “inaccurate” and that “little knowledge is very dangerous”.

The presentation about my doctoral research on Malta’s continental shelf geology at Durham University (supported by oil companies BP, Total, Shell and TGS Nopec), which won an award from BP in 2009, as well as my paper published last month in the journal Petroleum Geoscience had nothing to do with maritime boundaries or sovereign rights.

Despite having deliberately targeted my research, Rizzo intentionally or otherwise chooses to ignore numerous maps issued by research institutes and oil companies that show maritime boundary configurations prejudicial to Malta’s sovereign rights. What action has Rizzo taken against these institutions?

Moreover, the MRA’s oil concession maps persist in ignoring the Maltese Continental Shelf Act of 1966 (especially where there is no maritime boundary agreement), thus significantly decreasing Malta’s shelf area to the advantage of a foreign state. Does Rizzo know this or is “little knowledge” blissful at MRA?

Rizzo also tries to give the impression that he is an expert on the oil industry. Nevertheless, he fails to differentiate between published independent geological studies and studies by oil companies holding local licences for financial speculation. The MRA’s inability to discern oil companies’ real intentions resulted in not a single well drilled in the past decade. This lack of commitment for new oil wells is reflected in the MRA’s shamefully outdated (by over 10 years) and misleading “geolo­gical background” webpage.

In his letter, Rizzo deceitfully declares that the MRA is a geological survey. Such institutions are established by an Act of Parliament but there is no such law in Malta. When interviewed by Eurogeosurveys News (published in April 2012), one of the questions to Rizzo included: “Yours is one of the very few European countries which has not a formal national geological survey…” That says it all.

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