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A serious threat is posed over the region of Epanomy, near Thessaloniki, by the two natural gas drillings from 1985 revealed Pandelis Papazis, specialist on the issues of locating and extracting oil deposits, in front of  Zougla Radio.

During the “Unknown M” broadcast, Pandelis Papazis describes in front of the journalist Makis Triandafilopoulos his first-hand involvement in the chaos caused by the irresponsible authorities during his work with Andreas Papandreou’s government of the time as a researcher and special advisor on the practices of extraction and exploitation of industrial and natural resources.

According to Papazis, when he took part in the research of the hydrocarbon deposits in the area, two of the drillings showed high concentration of natural gas. Specifically, the first one showed 19M cm³ and the second one 9M cm³.

At the time, the drillings were determined of appropriate condition and could be used as a fuel right away.

However, despite that the appropriate testing took place to confirm that the resource is good for exploitation, the project was frozen, and the authorities plugged up the drilling openings with whatever materials available at hand.

This practice bears high risk, as the quantities of carbon dioxide released from the drillings vary between 15% and 30%, and have corrosive effect on the materials used for the plugging.

According to Papazis, there are three ways of treating a drilling. One is to begin the exploitation of the resource, another - which is done when exploitation is rendered impossible, and is to assist the environment returning to its normal state - is to place permanent concrete seals, and the third- to pace a temporary plug, also called a suspended well.

In the last case the drilling opening is sealed with a “plug” and specialized measuring equipment is installed. The carbon dioxide, however, is released in the atmosphere unobstructed.

The threat of an explosion emerges from the fact that the two 1985 drillings in Epanomy have been improperly temporarily sealed for 25 years now, and the plugs have been inevitably damaged by the carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, even if they were properly suspended, they should have been sealed with concrete in 1992, says the expert.

Looking for an analogy of the power of a possible explosion, the professional compared it with an atomic bomb, meaning that Epanomy could be blown up in the air any moment now.