New Estimates on Polish Shale Gas Expected to March

An estimate of the shale gas reserves in Poland is to be published in March reports PAP (Polish Press Agency), quoting , Jerzy Nawrocki,  director of the Polish Geological Institute.

The Institute has received the cooperation of the United States Geological Survey and according to the Polish press, reserves are examined with help of American technology.

The report was initially supposed to be released in the early autumn 2011.

According to Pawel Poprawa of the Institute, the delay was caused by technical reasons.

Speaking to Natural Gas Europe last year, he blamed data processing problems, connected with “incompatible formats of data coming from core samples secured during communist times”.

Previously published estimates of shale gas resources in Poland are imprecise ranging from from 1 TCM to over 5 TCM.

According to Energy Information Agency, Poland may have as much as 5.3 TCM (187 TCF) of recoverable reserves, while other assessments put the number at 3 TCM (Advanced Resources International) and 1.4 TCM (Wood McKenzie).

Poprawa indicated to Natural Gas Europe that the PGI/USGS document would evaluate technically recoverable gas resources more precisely and more conservatively than the mostly cited and the most optimistic EIA report..

According to Poprawa, the accuracy of the global EIA assessment is arguable, as “authors had no time to analyze separate regions in details”.

“In my personal opinion, when it comes to the Polish shale gas, the report overestimates acreage and production volume per unit.”- said Poprawa.

The Institute did not exclude that the incoming report will also include a preliminary estimate of the possible shale oil reserves.

Two experts of the Polish Geological Institute, speaking to Natural Gas Europe, say that recoverable oil can be expected mainly in the Northern and North-Eastern parts of the broad shale gas belt, running from the Baltic Sea, to Pomerania and Masovia to Lubelskie region.