The gas industry requires major financial outlays. Infrastructure needs expanding at practically all levels. We need gas connections and gas pipelines. All this spells huge spending, a large proportion of which will go to improving national energy security. Also, economics require that international gas connections should be expanded.

 

The exploitation of gas-bearing shale zones will require laying down many gas pipelines with smaller diameters, while the energy sector, with its high gas consumption, needs pipelines with much larger diameters. This means, among other things, larger profits for companies which will lay these pipelines. It should be remembered that the gas industry is looking to multi-billion spending. This vast investment means profit for hundreds of companies: engineering firms, suppliers of equipment, civil construction companies and banks that will finance these projects. “Local governments will do well out of shale gas extraction, with 90 percent of the mining fee going to their budgets”, said Vice-premier Waldemar Pawlak.

 

Another thing to be kept in mind is that, as land with gas-bearing shale appreciates by the value of these deposits, local governments’ land and real property tax receipts will increase providing local authorities with more funds to make their regions more attractive. Unemployment in shale gas mining areas will go down because there will be demand for labor to build infrastructure and, subsequently, to extract gas. All this will bring affluence to the local communities. I believe these factors will act to boost investment potentials of the regions with gas deposits.

 

Source: Gazeta Finansowa, 13 January 2012, p. 18, by Łukasz Ziaja