Bulgaria bans hydraulic fracking for shale gas

The National Assemby of Bulgaria. Bulgaria has become the second country after France to ban the controversial practice of hydraulic fracking for shale gas.

Bulgaria’s parliament has banned hydraulic fracking after large groups of protestors took to the streets in several Bulgarian cities. Bulgaria follows France in becoming the second European country to ban drilling for shale gas using the controversial fracking procedure. The government has also revoked a shale gas permit previously granted to the US energy company Chevron. Bulgaria has an estimated 1 trillion cubic meters of shale gas, in a highly productive agricultural area of the country. Protestors in Bulgaria carried bread loaves as a symbol of their opposition. France banned the practice last June, amid protests from environmentalists.

Opponents of hydraulic fracking say that the process, which involves forcing heated water mixed with chemicals and sand, all under high pressure, into the ground and breaking apart the gas-containing shale, is a risk to ground water and might even be responsible for earth tremors in some seismically active places. An energy company in the UK, Cuadrilla, suspended drilling for shale gas last year after a study linked the practice to earth tremors. Environmentalists in that country have also demanded an end to the practice.

Chevron also has plans to drill for shale gas in southeastern Poland, which contains large deposits near Warsaw and near the Baltic coast. Protests have erupted there, too, though both Chevron and ExxonMobil have been given licences to drill in Poland. Both Bulgaria and Poland have viewed their newly found shale gas deposits as a way to lessen their dependency on Russian oil and gas.