Polish Government Confirms Significant Interest in Shale Gas Prospects

Addressing a conference on unconventional gas deposits in Warsaw, Henryk Jezierski, Poland's Undersecretary of State for Environment and Chief State Geologist, confirmed that 44 licences on prospecting for unconventional gas deposits were issued in the past two years.

Jezierski mentioned such giants as ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil Corp as amongst the recipients."Apart from those 44 licences signed, there are a further 31 being considered now," stated Jezierski.

Poland is looking to extract natural gas from unconventional sources such as shale with the help of U.S. companies to help ease the eastern European country's reliance on imports.
Poland relies on imports for three-quarters of its annual gas consumption, with Russia being the primary supplier  "The US firms want to search for gas in Poland. If they find it, we shall split benefits: they will make profits, we will enjoy energy security," Jezierski explained.

Estimates made by the companies suggest that Poland may have unconventional gas deposits in its territory that will cover 100-200 years' home demand. The estimates range between 1.5nb-3bn cubic metres.  "We cannot say now how much unconventional gas there is in Poland. I can only quote research by US consulting agencies estimating these deposits at 1.5 to 3 trillion cubic metres."
Prospecting projects were launched mainly in the Lublin, Mazowsze, Pomeranian and Lower Silesian regions, all in all 12 per cent of the country's area.  The first drilling is scheduled for April by a consortium led by ConocoPhillips.

Sources: Upstream, Ordons.com