Abstract
Romania has a quite large inventory of unconventional continuous plays in the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic periods mainly in the foreland and back-arc basins. The assessing of units evaluated so far, following the EIA and USGS methodology is underway but first results indicate technically recoverable resources of 1,000 billion m3 of gas and 500 million bbl of oil. They show a tangible potential for investors once a specific legal framework is in place. The geological challenges for evaluating this category of resources are rather important because of the lack of novel information resulting from modern exploration and the classification regime of older one. The political hurdles are related to incomplete regulations, absence of community co-involvement, and the lack of any policy promoting the development of unconventional resources. The environmental debate has been very present in Romania and shall hopefully be solved with an unceasing consultation with the public society once new, transparent rules are set up.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to express our gratitude to Professor Georgi Georgiev who incited us to think at this vast subject which is the unconventional oil and gas domain then proposing us to join Professor Zhiltsov endeavor for completing this volume. Our thanks go also to Andrey Kostianoy who diligently helped for improving the editing of this paper.
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Popescu, B.M., Anastasiu, N. (2016). An Overview of Unconventional Resources of Romania. Pending Challenges. In: Zhiltsov, S. (eds) Shale Gas: Ecology, Politics, Economy. The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry, vol 52. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2016_6
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