Poland Gives Green Light to Massive Fracking Efforts

The day after the contentious Bulgarian vote Polish Treasury Minister Mikolaj Budzanowski told reporters that Polish companies with permits to explore for shale gas in the country must intensify drilling to start production of the fuel by 2014 or 2015, with Polish companies each drilling 12 wells and performing 12 hydraulic fracking operations annually.

The reason for such enthusiasm?

Simple, said Budzanowski – Poland’s shale-derived gas could be as much as 50 percent cheaper than the Gazprom natural gas Poland now receives from the 2,607 mile-long Yamal-Europe natural gas pipeline, which currently costs Warsaw more than $500 per 1,000 cubic meters (tcm) for West Siberian output.

Seeking to cut the expensive Russian natural gas umbilical cord, Poland has high expectations for its projected indigenous production shale natural gas, as it currently depends on Russian Gazprom supplies for nearly two-thirds of its annual gas consumption of 14 bcm, estimating its domestic reserves of conventional natural gas at some 100 bcm, which would only meet domestic needs for slightly more than seven years.

In contrast, the U.S. Energy Information Administration has estimated Poland could have the biggest shale natural gas reserves in Europe, amounting to some 5.3 tcm.

Read more: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Poland-Gives-Green-Light-to-Massive-Fracking-Efforts.html