The geologists indicate three regions in Poland in which this resource may be extracted on an industrial scale: Eastern Pomerania, borderline of Mazowsze and Lublin area and Podkarpacie. The oil is trapped in the same rock which contains gas. However, this type of rock it is located higher and sometimes it is even visible on the surface. Though, it does not mean that extracting oil from the shale is cheaper than extracting gas. Even though in both cases the same technology of exploitation is used: hydraulic fracturing which involves rock crushing and injecting large quantities of water with sand into the crack; this, however, gives varying effects.

 

“By making cracks in the rock, it is fairly easy to release gas from it. Oil has different density, so, it is much more difficult for it to penetrate the rock pores,” says Paweł Poprawa from the Polish Geological Institute.

 

But difficult does not mean impossible. For over two years, the deposits of bituminous shale have been exploited in the US by Chesapeake Energy. The company extracts oil from the rock in Bakken, North Dakota. Even though the exploitation cost is higher than from the conventional deposits, in the first case it is approx. US$ 30 and in the second approx. US$ 13 a barrel, still in a situation where the price of oil exceeds US$ 110, the investment is attractive. Especially, as oil from the Mexico Bay pumped on a large scale is even more expensive in extraction than oil from the shale.

 

In Poland, the additional advantage in favour of the deposits extraction are lower charges for transmissions over long distances. Furthermore, there are no costs of the transmission infrastructure construction, which makes the investment in shale gas exploitation very difficult, because the oil may be extracted into large vessels and then transported to the refineries by large tankers. Thanks to this, price of the Polish oil may be competitive as compared with the oil imported for example from Russia.

 

Explorations of the shale oil have already started in Poland. They are carried out by the same companies which received licenses for shale gas explorations. “There are no separate licenses for the shale oil and gas explorations. They are issued for the explorations of the hydrocarbons. For the time being, the technology of extracting oil from the shale is new but definitely the companies will be interested in its use,” says Henryk Jacek Jezierski, Vice Minister of Environment and the Chief National Geologist. (…). 

 

 

 

Source: Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, page no.: 3, 2011-10-13, by: Mariusz Staniszewski