ICIS: Polish shale gas pull-outs not necessarily tragic - bank

The decision of two more North American energy firms to end their shale gas exploration operations in Poland means less capital and know-how will be available to the country as it tries to unlock its unconventional gas reserves, a bank said on Thursday.

In a note to investors on the pull-out of Canada’s Talisman Energy and US company Marathon Oil  – which followed last year’s exit from Polish shale gas exploration by US energy major ExxonMobil – Robert Rethy, an analyst at WOOD & Company, said: “While the exit of the large oil companies is not necessarily a tragedy for Polish shale gas, it certainly means less available capital and know-how, and, thus, it is probably a setback, at least timing-wise, for the unconventional [gas] hopes.

“Smaller companies focusing on such unconventional prospects is not an unusual way of development, but it may take time to turn these prospects into real assets. Also, such exits and the lack of commercial discoveries to date clearly imply that initial hopes regarding the prospects of the Polish shale plays have been overly-ambitious.”  MORE