Politico: Polish Shale Gas Hits a Dry Well

Hopes kindled just four years ago that Poland would become a gas exporter — a “second Norway,” in the words of then-foreign minster Radek Sikorski — have been doused by the decision of U.S. energy giant ConocoPhilips’ Polish subsidiary of to halt exploration.

The exit this month of the last global player from Poland’s shale gas market, leaving just a few domestic and smaller foreign firms among whom drilling has come to a near halt, further undermines the case for fracking in the European Union, where Poland and the UK have been its strongest backers.

“The appetite for drilling has dried up,” said Tomasz Chmal, an expert on shale gas with law firm White & Case in Warsaw.

The industry’s fall is hard to swallow for those who had hoped for 300 years worth of energy independence from Russia, where Poland gets just over half of its gas imports. 

Read the full article HERE.