Rural Poland: On the Ground and Up Close

They were images that did look a little bit destructive, images rarely – if ever – seen at an unconventional gas conference in Europe: a huge land moving “vibrator,” equipment that was leaving a giant furrow on the farmland in its path.

The pictures belonged to Jakub Kostecki, CEO of New Gas Contracting, a provider of sourcing, landman and permitting services to the nascent oil and gas industry in Poland, who showed his pictures from the ground to attendees at the European Unconventional Gas Summit in Krakow, Poland.

“When we get to local communities and say there will be a small footprint left by what we are all doing we have to remember that they will remember this picture,” he explained. “Of course there’s nothing wrong with this as long as there’s a crew right behind the vibe to appraise the damage and another one right behind them to fix it.”

He recalled that many of the communities his company worked in had seen screenshots and video of vibrators "lurking in the forests," an image that had been played over and over on Polish television. 

Kostecki explained, “Local communities will have seen these images a couple of months before seismic crews come into the area.”

“If you take the ostrich approach - hiding your head in the sand - that’s not going to work,” he continued. “Some regions of Poland are used to seismic acquisition. Others are not. In places like Ilawa in the north, which has never seen vibes, this needs to be explained to the community. They need to be told what’s going on.”

He said that the visibility of these issues would become higher as activity increased in Poland.

“Most of the acquisition in Poland has been 2D. When the 3D, 3C and VSP work starts there will be a lot more equipment and people on the ground. Next year there will be many more crews and a lot more issues.”

In terms of wellsite permitting, Kostecki said: “We provide landman services, which basically means that we help the operators enter parcels in Poland and put rigs on the ground. O&G operators will encounter serious delays in Poland because their land issues aren’t sorted properly.”

He said his company, New Gas Contracting, was in the process of securing 220,000 permits for one of the 2D programs. In addition to providing landman services and wellsite permitting, NGC was negotiating with local landowners, and gminas, on where to set up rigs.

“Many (O&G companies) go in where it’s easiest to get equipment. Others will look at the plot from a technical standpoint - where the sweetspot is,” he said. “Still others will negotiate until they get the right price.”

Kostecki explained that after 8 September local communities had seen what a well looked like. “The 10 wells already drilled in Poland have made the public aware.”

He noted that because the shale gas industry was made up of majors, supermajors, and small companies from all over using different approaches with different corporate cultures, it affected how each of them interacted with local communities.

He showed a photo of a drilling site which he considered well organized.

“We need to remember that the local authorities are the local population, so you need to tread lightly,” opined Mr. Kostecki, who said that there could be up to 300 wells drilled in Poland by 2013. 

“We’re talking about a lot of land, a lot of wells. It will be a huge issue and everybody needs to have a strategy going forward.”

In terms of roads, he said access was a huge issue in Poland. “The road capacity tonnage is way too low and the way we deal with communities affects what kind of exemptions are available. There’s a lot of talk about more federal, more standardized regulation,” he said.

He added, “A lot of traffic is needed to get the seismic, drilling and fracking equipment onto a given piece of property.”