January 12 (SeeNews) - Slovenia's government adopted draft amendments to the mining law to ban large-scale hydraulic fracking, it said.
The amendments eliminate various shortcomings in the original version of the law and were sent for consideration by the National Assembly, the government said in a statement on Tuesday.
According to Slovenian media reports, the ban will not affect the hydraulic fracking at the Petisovci tight gas field by UK-listed Ascent Resources, as the project is not considered to be of a large-scale.
Companies will be able to receive a hydraulic fracking permit if they inject less than 1,000 cu m of water into the well during the fracturing phase or less than 10,000 cu m during the entire gas extraction process, public broadcaster RTV reported on Wednesday.
Ascent holds a 75% interest in the Petisovci project, which lies in the northeastern corner of Slovenia between Hungary and Croatia, and its joint venture partner Geoenergo holds the remaining 25%. The current concession was awarded to Geoenergo in 2002 and is due for renewal in 2022.