Hundreds of Romanian riot police armed with batons early Monday forcibly removed some 100 villagers who had been camping out for weeks in protest of Chevron's plans to drill for shale gas, witnesses said.

The residents of Pungesti in northeastern Romania had set up a protest camp in a privately-owned field next to the site where the US energy giant plans to drill its first exploration well.

"The police arrived around 03h00 (01h00 gmt), they beat us and dragged us away," one of the villagers, Elena Privac, 36, told AFP.

"They forced us out of the camp we had set up and blocked the road, not even school buses are allowed to pass," she added.

Journalists were stopped from going near the scene and the police were not available for comment.

An AFP journalist on the scene said around 1,000 riot police were involved in the operation, while the police put the number at 300. The owner of the field where the villagers had been camping out for more than six weeks had agreed to the protest.

Chevron suspended activities in the region after the start of the protests in October and instead launched a door-to-door information campaign about its plans.

Villagers are afraid of the environmental and health impact of the highly controversial drilling method used to unlock shale gas, called hydraulic fracturing or "fracking".

The technique consists of pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into deep rock formations to free oil and gas, with environmentalists warning the process may contaminate ground water and even cause small earthquakes.

Pungesti is one of three villages in Romania's impoverished northeast, along with the country's Black Sea coast, where Chevron has permits to explore for shale gas.