Gazprom to Benefit if Romania Does Not Exploit Shale Gas, Says President Basescu
Following several days of protests in Pungești and halting work at the first shale gas exploration bore belonging to Chevron, politicians give statements and show the real objective of the protests.
Romanian President Traian Basescu stated during a show on B1 TV: “No question, Gazprom benefits from Romania not exploiting gas in the Black Sea or shale gas, because we might became an exporter and can supply gas to a part of Gazprom current market.”
He also stated “The resources we are exploiting are growing scarce. The responsibility of today’s politicians is to look a bit to the future.”
Basescu explained that Russia does not want an energy independent Romania. And the fact that “in the west (western part of the country) we have no Gazprom protests and we do not have protests because Lukoil has a concession in the Black Sea; nothing that is Russian is touched, wherever Americans are there are protests” is enough to place question marks over the protests against Chevron exploitation.
“We have focused on Chevron. There are ten companies that have permits for shale gas. I don’t know why everyone is focused on the American company Chevron […]. We have no protests caused by the fact that Lukoil has a concession in the Black Sea for natural and shale gas; and they have a large perimeter. Nothing that is Russian is touched, wherever are Americans is a subject of …,” added Basescu.
He said that resources are diminishing and if Romania will not find other gas resources it will grow dependent on “someone that proved to Europe that they can stop supplying at any time.”
“The Russian Federation is not a lamb; it is a power that plays its hand to keep its influence. I wouldn’t want these gentlemen who say not to exploit the resources being put in the position to explain why Romania is dependent. Certainly these agitators will not be there at that time. The responsibility of politicians is to look forward a bit. I am not among those who say everything is perfect. Any such exploitation has environmental costs and risks. I was looking over statistical data, the risk of failure is of one bore in a thousand. Most likely until we being exploitation the risk will be of one bore in three thousand,” explained the President.
Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta stated: “For 300, 100, 1000 people we cannot block a country of 22 million and I will ask you; from my part you have permission, the gendarmerie, police, state institutions to act without reluctance when we are talking about serious breaches of law.”
“The desire and political decision is to have energy independence for Romania by exploiting all resources we have, of course abiding by the highest environmental standards is a decision I and USL assume,” detailed Ponta.
“The ones who are saying USL (the governmental coalition) has ever objected using shale gas is lying! What USL did was ask for one year moratorium in order to allow European Union to form an official position regarding this topic. At the same time we asked for guarantees that environmental standards will be respected. In the meantime the position of the European Union was clarified and they allowed the projects regarding shale gas extraction and the European Parliament voted a resolution in this sense. Moreover, Romania has imposed the highest environmental standards, the strictest in Europe. So, we have the guarantee that everything is in order and we can go forward in the endeavor to attain energy independence,” said the speaker of the Social Democratic Party, Catalin Ivan.
Gabriel Petrescu