Report: Bulgaria to Ban Shale Gas?
The BGNES agency has reported that Bulgaria's ruling the centre-right GERB party will support an upcoming parliamenatry motion to ban shale gas production in Bulgaria.
Novinite indicates the comment was attributed to Angel Slavchev, a representative of the environmentalist group Civic Initiative for the Ban on Shale Gas, who told the BGNES agency that GERB representatives in Parliament had agreed to table and vote for legislation prohibiting shale gas production from Bulgaria.
A motion banning shale gas development is proposed to presented to Parliament on Wednesday.
The reports comes against the backdrop of a protests held in Sofia that saw 1,500 people rallying in front of the House of Parliament to protest against shale gas development, as well as similar protests in Varna, Dobrich and Plovdiv.
Should the report be accurate, it would mark a dramatic turnaround by the ruling party, which has been supportive of shale gas development as way to reduce dependency on Russian supplies, cut energy costs and even generate profit for the EU's poorest nation.
Bulgaria's energy minister Traicho Traikov had said that 1 trillion (1,000 billion) cubic metres of gas could be found in Bulgaria, which would cover the country’s consumption for 300 years.
The European Commission recently granted Bulgarian Ministry of Environment's request to require a favorable environmental impact assessment before exploring for shale gas. The request followed public pressure motivated by concerns about the environmental safety of the hydraulic fracturing technique incvolved in shale gas extraction.
Chevron Corp recently indicated that it would start its exploratory drillings for shale gas in Bulgaria in 2015.
Chevron, which won a tender held in 2011 for a shale gas deposit in a large section of Dobrudzha in the north east of the country, planned to carry out two exploratory drillings in 2015 and two more in 2016.
However, the Bulgarian government has not yet finalized a shale gas exploration and production contract with Chevron and were reportedly continuing.
The opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party had already pledged its support to a ban on shale gas exploration and production.
The left-wing party said that it is following the path of its French socialist brethren and their experience with successfully imposing a ban on hydraulic fracturing.
The Socialists had made reconsideration of shale gas activities a key party of their platform in the October 23rd presidential election, which saw their candidate, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister Ivaylo Kalfin go down to defeat. Kalfin had pledged to initiate a national referendum on shale gas drilling and production in Bulgaria.
In November, parliamentarians rejected a proposal by the far-right nationalist Ataka party for a moratorium on shale gas exploration in the country.