A scramble for drilling rights is underway in Poland after reports emerged that as much as 48 trillion cubic feet of unconventional gas may be present in the northern and central areas of the country.
A report by Wood Mackenzie, coupled with the advances in American technology to produce shale gas could make Poland self sufficient for the foreseeable future.
ConcocoPhillips is to launch Poland’s first shale gas drilling programme next month with Exxon-Mobil, Marathon and Talisman Energy set to follow suit.
The gas is not in conventional reservoirs and has become accessible recently only though the use of the new hydraulic fracturing technology which has been developed in the US.
“Poland is going to emerge as a significant gas producer and there is a lot of interest. All of the majors are coming in and Gazprom is looking at this with some alarm,” Oisin Fanning, the executive chairman of San Leon Energy, a British company that has secured three licence areas in the region with Talisman, told The Times.
