Romania wants to become the EU's biggest gas producer. It's a problem for many

With its Neptun Deep offshore gas project, Romania aims to extract approximately 100 billion cubic metres of natural gas and it is banking on funding allowed under the EU's taxonomy -- which categorised nuclear and gas as sustainable -- to build a pipeline.

"Romania is a strategic transit point and an important regional player, being able to contribute, thanks to its operational transmission infrastructure and the geostrategic position we enjoy, to a strengthened regional security," the country's Energy Minister, Sebastian Burduja, said in June during the signing of the Tuzla-Podisor gas pipeline order.

This pipeline will link Neptun Deep to the BRUA pipeline supplying gas to Hungary and Austria.

Activists have however decried the project over environmental concerns. 

"This project’s greatest and most damaging impact would be its climate impact," Alin Tanase from Greenpeace Romania told Euronews. 

"We expect this project to lead to fugitive methane emissions, like most projects of this nature, both at the gas probe level and at the transportation levels, as Romania has some of the oldest infrastructure in the Union. This methane is much more dangerous than CO2 - it has a higher potential to warm the climate," he added. 

The CO2 emissions should also be substantial. 

"BankWatch estimated that Neptun Deep would emit 18 million metric cubes on a yearly basis, nearly as much as what the entire annual Romanian electricity sector produces at the moment. This would be a very substantial emission spike," Raluca Petcu, BankWatch Romania’s Gas Campaigner, said.

Yet, "these emissions are not accounted for," according to Petcu, "because they are indirect emissions, resulting from burning the gas, not the direct construction and