The world needs the blue fuel. The share of natural gas in energy consumption will be firmly on the rise in decades to come. According to Deloitte consultancy experts who prepared an “Energy Predictions 2012” report, the growing importance of natural gas will be one of the most pronounced trends in the global and Polish economy alike. “Surveys based on global models of the gas market show the demand for gas in the European Union growing at an average rate of 14 percent a year (till 2030) and in Poland this growth could be even faster, up to 37 percent.

 

Meanwhile, Poland’s position on the regional energy map could change radically owing to the chance to produce shale gas. Now that, with Nord Stream gas pipeline operational, we are standing to lose the status of a significant transit country of Russian gas, there is all the more reason to make the best of our chance of becoming a meaningful gas producer. Industrial-scale production of gas from non-conventional sources can start in several years at the earliest, but the agenda is very tight. Poland is already emerging as Europe’s leader in the search for natural gas from new non-conventional sources.

 

From the work conducted so far it appears that there can be an exemplary cooperation between businesses, the state administration and the market regulators. Indeed, a rare consensus has developed on the Polish political scene; basically all political forces of consequence are in agreement about the opportunity offered by the appraisal of shale gas reserves. This matter has also been accorded a priority status in the work of the present government. Cooperation between exploring companies – those with the Treasury’s shareholding and those wholly privately-owned - and public administration is going well. This is – alongside the promising geological conditions – another magnet to have attracted to Poland major global fuel groups, such as Chevron, ExxonMobil or Marathon Oil.

 

The Ministry of the Environment has granted 248 concessions for exploration and appraisal of hydrocarbon deposits to date, of which over 40 percent (108 concessions) cover non-conventional deposits. Polish firms are also involved in prospecting for shale gas. PKN Orlen has been conducting exploration through its SPV company ORLEN Upstream. In December 2011 ORLEN Upstream completed its first exploration well and started another, in the vicinity of Lublin which is one of the more promising geological areas. It is worth noting that PKN Orlen is one of the largest national gas consumers, its gas requirement standing now at over 1 billion cubic meters a year and likely to increase in connection with the group’s plans to expand into gas-based energy generation. For the group, the involvement in shale gas exploitation offers a chance to meaningfully increase its capitalisation based on its own blue fuel reserves.

 

The natural gas prospecting boom is both an opportunity and a challenge for the chemical industry because the exploitation of deposits relies on broad use of innovative chemical processes. The Kraków-based Academy of Mining and Metallurgy (Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza) is already designing a drilling fluid with a chemical composition conforming both to the technical requirements and to the most rigorous environmental regulations in the EU.

 

Relevant Polish patents are capable of allaying the same environmental concerns which have caused a number of other European countries to disallow the extraction of shale gas. It should be remembered that the European fuel groups which set out to look for non-conventional deposits are richer by the American gas sector’s experience and therefore can steer clear of the hurdles and problems that had to be overcome on the American continent.

 

Source: Polska Metropolia Warszawska, 23 December 2011, p. 10, by Jarosław Wieliński