Int’l & Regional Energy News
Romania Riot Police Clear Shale Gas Protesters
Posted: Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Hundreds of Romanian riot police armed with batons forcibly removed some
100 villagers early Monday who had been camping out for weeks in protest of
multinational energy corporation Chevron's (CVX) plans to drill for shale gas,
witnesses said.
The residents of Pungesti in northeastern
Romania
had
set up a protest camp in a privately-owned field next to the site where the
U.S.
energy giant plans to drill its first exploration well.
"The police arrived around 0300 (0100 GMT), they beat us and dragged us
away," one of the villagers, Elena Privac, 36, told AFP.
"They forced us out of the camp we had set up and blocked the road, not
even school buses are allowed to pass," she added.
Journalists were stopped from going near the site and the police were not
available for comment.
An AFP journalist on the scene said around 1,000 riot police were involved in
the operation, while the police put the number at 300. The owner of the field
where the villagers had been camping out for more than six weeks had agreed to
the protest.
Chevron suspended activities in the region after the start of the protests in
October and instead launched a door-to-door information campaign about its
plans.
Villagers are afraid of the environmental and health impact of the highly
controversial drilling method used to unlock shale gas, called hydraulic
fracturing or "fracking."
The technique consists of pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into
deep rock formations to free oil and gas, with environmentalists warning the
process may contaminate ground water and even cause small earthquakes.
Pungesti is one of three villages in
Romania
's
impoverished northeast, along with the country's
Black
Sea
coast, where Chevron has permits to explore for shale gas.
(DowJones)