Poland: Licensing Process Frozen

The night temperatures falling as low as -34 C ( -30 F) appear to be in line with the Polish government's apparent freeze of the process of issuing concessions for shale gas exploration.

The Ministry of Environment has not awarded any concessions since the 1st of January, when the new Geology and Mining Law was introduced.

Apart from the corruption scandal in the ministry casting shadow on the whole process, the most attractive areas have been long secured by North American majors, Polish gas and fuel companies, and some offshore companies, the official reason put forth for this standstill is the new Gas and Mining Law.

Under this law, licenses - both for exploration and for production of hydrocarbons - are granted through obligatory tender. On the other hand, the new bill leaves a possibility, that some of the concession areas may be exempted from the tender regime.

However the investors were explicitly informed in a special letter from the Chief Geologist and from the Deputy Minister of Environment, that the possibility of exemption of obligatory concessions is currently closed, as the government is not presently designating any areas of this type. 

Over the last five years, 110 exploration concessions have been issued on a first-come, first-served basis.

The majority of the grants allows for exploration of  both conventional and unconventional sources of hydrocarbons.

Procurement notices will be available on the Internet www.bip.gov.pl and www.mos.gov.pl and in the Official Journal of the Europan Union.

However, there aren`t any notices at the moment.