Shale Gas Resources May Change Poland

Jerzy Nawrocki, Head of the Polish Geological Institute – National Research Institute (PIG), spoke with Polish Market about potential opportunities offered by Poland’s unconventional gas deposits.

Shale gas is becoming an increasingly popular topic and its resources in Poland certainly put this country in the European lead.

In recent years the Environment Ministry issued over 70 shale gas prospecting licenses to 40 companies, including world giants like ExxonMobil. Last spring the managements of the world’s leading oil companies met scientists and government officials in the Polish Geological Institute (PIG) headquarters in Warsaw. Besides purely technical matters they discussed prospecting strategies for the coming years and possible barriers in this respect. So we have a commodity and serious capital.

There’s still the question if shale gas prospecting will pay off. It is worth mentioning that PIG was interested in the now-renowned gas-bearing slate even before World War Two and published its first report on it in 1920. Of course, at the time nobody sought raw materials in it, and nobody in Poland or elsewhere was even remotely aware that it contained gas. Nonetheless our archives contain reports on 7,100 deep drillings, beginning in 1935 and continuing through the 1970s until today. Now these materials will be re-analysed with regard to shale gas. This will entail entering hundreds of parameters into specialised computer programmes and subjecting them to highly-advanced statistical processing.

I must add that PIG has not yet issued an official report on shale gas resources in Poland. We do not deny estimates made by consulting firms like Wood McKenzie (1.4 bn cu m) or Advanced Resources International (3 bn cu m), but we need an analysis of our own based on more extensive data. Our initial estimates will be ready by next spring. We will be assisted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), with whom we have sealed an agreement on the matter. Under this accord Polish geologists will be trained using American soft- and hardware, then, together with USGS, we will draw up shale gas resource estimates. The first to know the results will be the Environment Ministry. The US side want the Institute to function as a hub institution for shale gas estimates in all of Central and East Europe including Belarus, Romania and Bulgaria.

Another very crucial matter we shall take up with USGS concerns the environmental effects of shale gas prospecting. The partnership with USGS is very important as the US is the world leader in obtaining gas from unconventional sources. The announcement of the initial results will be an important phase. These results will be presented at an international conference in Warsaw hosted by us and USGS between April 14 and 16, 2011. This year USGS officials visited us several times. One of the visits concerned landslides and cooperation possibilities in this respect. The last visit took place only a week ago, the talks focused on cooperation in the assessment of Polish shale gas resources. I am proud to say that Donald Gautier, an outstanding specialist in oil and gas resource estimation and head of a team which recently presented a much-discussed estimate of Arctic shale gas resources, was very impressed by research in this field carried on by our Institute.

As for exploitation, there are surveys underway in several locations countrywide. The first drilling was carried out in Łebień and Cedry Wielkie by the  Lane Energy Poland (3Legs Resources), the Polish oil and gas corporation PGNiG surveyed an earlier drilling in Markowola, Lubelskie province, further surveys are planned along a strip leading to the south-east from Pomerania to the Lubelskie region. PGNiG is also interested in shale gas and plans to join the Geo-Centrum Polska scientific-industrial cluster which we are currently founding. The cluster will consist of three companies: PGNiG, PGE Bełchatów and KGHM, and will be overseen by PIG.

Source: Polish Market