“It [the exploration tender] will definitely not be suspended but I think that after the talks with the winning bidder we will require to envisage two scenarios in the contract. First of all, to carry out exploration works, and they will also be given a possibility to carry out extraction operations. We understand perfectly that the issue of a new [extraction] tender would be unfair towards the company that will invest large sums of money,” he said in an interview to Žinių Radijas on Thursday.
Butkevičius reminded that two existing pieces of legislation would have to be amended prior to the signing of the contract so as to prevent “certain risks to people” that might arise due to exploration.
Meanwhile Parliamentary Speaker Vydas Gedvilas of the Labor Party believes that the winner of tender should initially be awarded exploration rights only and the decision on gas extraction should be made once those resources were discovered.
“I think that exploration is necessary in the beginning. We just have to find out what sub-soil resources we have, we have to find out whether we have those gas resources or not, and what are the volumes. I think this shall be done first, I mean exploration, and the decision on extraction should be taken thereafter,” Gedvilas said in an interview to the Polish-language radio station Znad Willi on Thursday.
The chairs of parliamentary Committees on Environmental Protection and Economics have proposed to the government to put on hold the tender for licenses to explore for shale gas in Western Lithuania until the adoption of legislation that will govern the exploration and use of these natural resources. They also urged to establish a task group that would tackle those problems and assess cost effectiveness of shale use.
The government should decide soon whether to issue the green light for Chevron to explore for shale gas. Lithuania is now fully dependent on natural gas supplied by Russia’s gas giant Gazprom.
Shale gas is being commercially extracted on a large scale in the US. In Europe, however, these projects sparked opposition from environmentalists who claim that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which is used to extract shale gas, affects the environment.
