Bloomberg: Chevron Lithuania Shale-Gas Deal Delayed to May for Law Changes

Lithuania will wait to sign a shale-gas exploration agreement with Chevron Corp. until Parliament amends laws to strengthen environmental regulations, Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said.

“We’ll sign the agreement after Parliament adopts the legislation, which in the best case could be three weeks after Easter,” Butkevicius told reporters today in Vilnius, the capital. “Hopefully in early May we can start getting ready for actual exploration.”

Chevron, a U.S. energy company, last year bought half of the Lithuanian oil and gas recovery company LL Investicijos and in January submitted the only bid in a tender for shale-gas exploration rights in the Baltic nation. Two parliamentary committees this week urged the government to ban exploration until laws regulating such activity are strengthened.  MORE