Warsaw Business Journal: Getting it right on Polish shale gas: what American companies may be missing

The stakes for shale gas in Central and Eastern Europe just got a whole lot bigger. Last week’s announcement that Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell would lead the planned exploration for unconventional gas in Ukraine has increased the likelihood that Europe might someday be flush with commercial quantities of non-Russian natural gas. Yet recent setbacks for shale gas in Bulgaria and Romania, together with a possible ban in the Czech Republic and a slow start to the first round of regulations in Poland are reminders that a bright future for this resource is far from assured. While most attention has focused on the role of regional capitals in creating the right climate for energy investment, the international oil companies who are pioneering the search for shale gas in countries like Poland can do more to ensure their own success.

Should it materialize, the benefits of a commercially-viable arc of unconventional gas from the Baltic to the Black Sea would be a boon to regional economies, a catalyst for closer commercial links with the United States and a robust solution to one Central Europe’s greatest vulnerabilities: energy insecurity. Even so, events of the last six months have also shown just how irregular the process of regional unconventional gas development is likely to be in practice. From Bulgaria’s whiplash reversal on shale exploration last December to the Romanian government’s new moratorium on hydraulic fracturing – the process for recovering shale gas – and a possible ban in the Czech Republic, public pushback against unconventional gas has quickly surfaced.  MORE