Searching for Shale Gas in the Baltic Sea

Lotos, Baltic Energy Resources and Italian ENI are trying to get the concessions

The majority of the most prospective land concessions for the exploration of shale gas in Poland has been already allocated. In total 85 licenses were issued and even though the Ministry of the Environment assures that a few interesting sites on which there may be the unconventional resource are left, the companies are already looking for it elsewhere. They targeted the Baltic Sea. Today, the majority of the shale gas explorations has focused on the Baltic coast but according to the scientists it is exactly under the sea bottom where gigantic deposits of shales may be located. As it is explained by Jan Krasoń, PhD, one of the eminent geologists specialising in this field, the deposits stretch from Sweden to the south-east border of Poland. “The closer to Poland, the thickness of the deposits increases. Under the sea it reaches even 1000 meters”, he explains  in the discussion with the "DGP". No small wonder that more and more oil companies consider the exploration under the water. Such companies include the Lotos Group and Baltic Energy Resources (BER), a company owned by the son of one of the wealthiest Polish females, Anna Podniesińska.

Lotos, which for many years has been engaged in exploration and exploitation of oil and conventional gas on the Baltic Sea, has just expanded the licenses to include shale gas. Paweł Olechnowicz, President of Lotos, says directly: “It is very likely that there is unconventional gas within the sites covered by our sea concessions. Lotos has already received six sea shale concessions and tries to obtain four more. In turn, BER applied to the Ministry of the Environment for six licenses. Also, Italians of ENI got interested in the Baltic Sea. It is possible that the Polish Oil and Gas Company (PGNiG) will also join the game. For the time being, as it was established by the "DGP", the company would like to focus, however, on the exploitation of the conventional gas from under the sea bottom.  “I am not hiding the fact that we are interested in the Baltic Sea. However, we are not planning to operate there on our own, we rather consider the co-operation with Lotos”, clarifies Marek Karabuła, Vice President of PGNiG.

So far, nowhere in the world exploration or exploitation of the shale gas from under the sea bottom has been conducted. “In the United States nobody has been interested in it because they have sufficient volume of shale gas on land. However, we consider this in Poland because in the future the Baltic Sea will be an attractive source of unconventional resources”, says an individual knowledgeable about the subject matter. Poles may be the pioneers. The British watch our activities as they also count on getting shale gas, among others, from deposits on the North Sea. As it was emphasised in February by the House of Commons, for the time being the costs of exploitation on the sea are not known. Lotos estimates that they would be definitely higher than on land. The cost of the land test well at the first stage of the unconventional gas exploration together with fracturing is estimated at almost PLN 30 million.

Source: Grupa LOTOS S.A - first published by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, on page: 12, 2011-05-19, by: Michał Duszczyk