Posted on 12/01/2014 6:08:30 AM PST by Theoria
PUNGESTI, Romania — Vlasa Mircia, the mayor of this destitute village in eastern Romania, thought he had struck it rich when the American energy giant Chevron showed up here last year and leased a plot of land he owned for exploratory shale gas drilling.
But the encounter between big business and rural Romania quickly turned into a nightmare. The village became a magnet for activists from across the country opposed to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Violent clashes broke out between the police and protesters. The mayor, one of the few locals who sided openly with Chevron, was run out of town, reviled as a corrupt sellout in what activists presented as a David versus Goliath struggle between impoverished farmers and corporate America.
“I was really shocked,” recalled the mayor, who is now back at his office on Pungesti’s main, in fact only, street. “We never had protesters here and suddenly they were everywhere.”
Pointing to a mysteriously well-financed and well-organized campaign of protest, Romanian officials including the prime minister say that the struggle over fracking in Europe does feature a Goliath, but it is the Russian company Gazprom, not the American Chevron.
Gazprom, a state-controlled energy giant, has a clear interest in preventing countries dependent on Russian natural gas from developing their own alternative supplies of energy, they say, preserving a lucrative market for itself — and a potent foreign policy tool for the Kremlin.
“Everything that has gone wrong is from Gazprom,” Mr. Mircia said.
This belief that Russia is fueling the protests, shared by officials in Lithuania, where Chevron also ran into a wave of unusually fervent protests and then decided to pull out, has not yet been backed up by any clear proof. And Gazprom has denied accusations that it has bankrolled anti-fracking protests.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Russia doing this? It's Putin.
царь Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин
I thought it would be Saudi money. Or Venezuelan money. Or Canadian money.
Russia is keeping a close eye on every potential threat to it’s economy. Fracking and shale oil is a huge threat to it.
That Israel has discovered vast reserves in the Mediterranean could fuel one of the last wars on planet earth, spoken of in Ezekiel 38. A war led by none other than Russia.
60 dollar oil is more a threat to fracking.
And it was Soviet money behind the anti-nuke movement in the 70’s and 80’s. Same stuff, different century.
Standard MO of communists back to the 20s.
I thought I read yesterday it was a lower price point.
At any rate, as another freeper posted a few days back, the only real threat with this low price point is “new” drilling/fracking. The well pads in place and producing can be eased back until the price rises. The pads are in place (as are other drill sites) so that cost is already “spent”. New drilling fracking will just be on hold; its not like the resources under the ground are going anywhere.
Not Canadian, we’re victims too - who do you think is behind all those anti-pipeline protests?
Russians and Saudi Arabia.
Both have a strong interest in making sure the Oilsands crude never makes it to market.
Yeah, I didn’t see any possible reason for Canadian encouragement. The fracking protests are really based upon an anti-oil infrastructure mentality. The same folks protest pipelines as well.
Bottom line is its expensive. At least more expensive than classic drilling.
This is what the Russians do.
During the 1980s we had to face their demonstrators and terrorists, kidnappings and murders, and terrorist bombings.
Which Huge, Embarrassingly Backward European Country Is Financing Massive Fracking Protests?
PING!
Thanks Theoria.
Oil, the Ruble and Putin Are All Headed for 63 this year.
;’)
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