Financial Times: Energy: ExxonMobil departure unsettles outlook for shale gas exploration
Poland’s aim of becoming a “second Norway” by tapping shale gas deposits has been dented by ExxonMobil’s decision to quit the country and a survey that downscaled potential reserves.
It was in April 2010 that Radoslaw Sikorski, foreign minister, said shale gas gave Poland a chance to replicate Norway’s success. Since then about 25 exploration wells have been drilled in the country’s shale, which stretches in a band from northwest Poland to the southeast. The drilling has proved the rock contains gas but the results, especially of the few horizontal wells that have been hydraulically fractured, or fracked, have been disappointing so far. MORE