E&P: BNK Petroleum Takes On European Shale

The most active shale exploration for BNK Petroleum is in Poland, while operations in Spain and Germany are moving a little more slowly.  On the other side of the Atlantic, the company is also pursuing the Caney Shale in the Ardmore Basin in Oklahoma.

Luckily, according to Wolf Regener, president and chief executive officer, BNK Petroleum, the company is in a liquids-rich play with its Tishomingo field in the Woodford Shale in the Ardmore Basin in Oklahoma.

BNK Petroleum has been operating shale-gas projects since early 2005 with four different U.S. projects. The Tishomingo field is the project that works economically for the company, he told participants during the Hart Energy DUG 2012 conference in Ft. Worth, TX, while participating on a panel of first-movers addressing “International Unconventionals -- Taking The World By Storm” on April 24.   

“Since we have one of four projects that worked for us economically in the U.S., we wanted to go somewhere that has a large enough acreage position to get into multiple plays.  We also want to take in partners to de-risk some of these reservoirs and still have enough to make an impact on PNK,” he explained.

“Europe has a lot of gas, and no one has been looking there for shale,” Regener said.  “We drew a line from Poland to Turkey and said, ‘let us focus west of there.’”

That’s how BNK Petroleum ended up with a little over 1.0 million net acres in Poland, nearly 3.0 million acres in Germany and about 400,000 net acres in Spain.  The company also hopes to be awarded another concession in Spain that will bring its total there to 600,000 acres.  MORE