SHALE GAS - IN THE ELECTORAL CAMPAIGN George Epurescu: "Ponta throws electoral firecrackers, and Iohannis doesn't have the guts to broach the subject"

On Sunday night, Prime-minister Victor Ponta said, on TV, that Romania doesn't have shale gas deposits. "Apparently we don't have shale gas and we have been fighting hard over something that we do not have", the prime-minister said.

Activist George Epurescu yesterday told Bursa, that the statement of Victor Ponta is just an electoral "firecracker", because he has no other solution to dodge the debate on the issue of shale gas prior to the second round.

In his opinion, the prime-minister is trying to sway some of the voters at the last minute: "Ponta has a thorny issue, that of the shale gas, and he wanted to create an advantage for himself prior to the elections of November 16th, but he contradicts himself, because he has been telling us all year that we do have shale gas. Ponta is trying to avoid the debates concerning shale gas and he wants to induce the idea that it doesn't exist to assuage people and sway them over to his side".

The activist also told us that Victor Ponta hopes that this joke will last for at least a week, until the second round, whereas Klaus Iohannis has information about shale gas, but he doesn't have the courage to make a statement on the issue.

George Epurescu also said that Victor Ponta is not liked in the areas where Chevron conducts shale gas exploration activities. In Pungeşti and in the county of Vaslui, in general, the prime-minister got very few votes, and has one of the lowest popularity rankings in the entire country, according to the quoted source.

In his opinion, next year, in January-February, the Court of Appeal of Iaşi will render a final ruling in the lawsuit between the local council of Băcani and the prefect of Vaslui, concerning the exploration for shale gas in the locality.

George Epurescu considers that this decision will most likely favor the natives, and this will blow up every exploration and exploitation license that Chevron holds in Romania.

"The American company is being cornered in court and has no way out of all these lawsuits that it is involved in anymore", said Mr. Epurescu, who emphasized: "In order to accurately find out whether shale gas exists in a certain area, it takes approximately 3-8 drills in order to make measurements, not just one like in the case of the well of Pungeşti. Chevron wouldn't have come to Vaslui if it didn't have clear data proving that shale gas exists in the region".

Contacted by Bursa, the representatives of Chevron România declined to comment on the statements of prime-minister Victor Ponta and told us: "Chevron is reviewing the data provided by the drilling operations and geo-physical surveys in order to understand the potential of argillite for extracting natural gas. Once the analyses are completed, the results will be handed over to the National Agency for Mineral Resources (ANRM) and will remain in custody of the state. The confidentiality of information of that nature is preserved according to the Romanian legislation."

• Riza, Greenpeace: "We have asked the government for the official documents which the prime-minister based his statements on"

Alexandru Riza, campaign manager at Greenpeace România, told us: "I don't know what Victor Ponta based his statements on. It may be just a topic intended to help him in his electoral campaign".

The activist claims that Greenpeace has sent a letter to the government requesting the official documents that the prime-minister has based his statements on.

Some non-governmental organizations that have opposed hydraulic fracking were represented, on Saturday, in the protests of Bucharest and in Romania to support the Romanians in the diaspora that were unable to vote in the first round of the presidential elections.

Activist Nicuşor Dan yesterday told us that the list of NGOs that participated in the protests that took place in Romania include ActiveWatch, Greenpeace and the "Save Bucharest" Association ("Asociaţia Salvaţi Bucureştiul").

Nicuşor Dan, the president of the "Save Bucharest" Association, recently told us in an interview, that the authorities should modify the Law of Oil, and the new version should include the notion of shale gas and clearly establish who owns the latter.

He said that in the ongoing lawsuits that his NGO has filed against American company Chevron, the main element in dispute is whether these resources belong to the government or to the local communities: "Based on the current version of the law, we think that shale gas definitely belongs to the local communities. The situation is unnatural because these communities do not have the necessary means to exploit these resources. Many of them don't want the exploitation of shale gas. A change of the legislative framework is needed, so that the ownership of shale gas will be transferred from the communes to the state or to insert it in the Law on Oil".

The activist considers that the law of the Public Estate says that every underground resource belongs to the state or to the local communities, without making a very clear distinction.