Telegraph: Poland's shale drive will transform Europe, if it does not drop the ball
The US Energy Department thinks Poland has enough shale gas to power the country for 300 years.
Another branch of the same US government - the US Geological Survey - says there is "essentially nothing" in the Silurian shale corridor from Gdansk to western Ukraine, the great treasure that was supposed to free Eastern Europe from the stranglehold of Russian gas.
If America's experts cannot agree, it is no surprise that Poland has become the wishful-thinking battleground of Continental Europe's fracking wars, each side able to cherry-pick authority and make any hyperbolic claim it likes.
"We have no idea how much shale we really have. There is only one way to find out, and that is to drill wells," said Pawel Poprawa, author of a key report by Poland's own Geological Institute.
The geostrategic stakes are high. If Poland - now buttressed by Britain and Romania - can pull off its shale gambit, momentum will almost certainly become unstoppable in a string of other countries. "We think the price of gas is going to come down from $11 [million metric British thermal units] to around $6.50, and this will make a huge difference because high gas prices are killing Europe," said Oisin Fanning, head of the AIM-listed driller San Leon Energy, which is exploring in the "Baltic Basin" near Gdansk. MORE