International oil majors and Polish state-controlled companies should
ramp up their shale gas exploration efforts in
Poland
to
continue gathering more data, Polish officials said Wednesday after the
national geological institute said Polish reserves are likely much smaller than
the Energy Information Administration's rougher estimate.
Poland
's
national geological institute, or PGI, estimates the country's recoverable
reserves of shale gas at between 346 billion cubic meters and 768 bcm, the
institute said in its first report on the subject, written with the help of
experts from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The estimate, which
Poland
's
chief geologist Piotr Wozniak called "extremely conservative," is as
much as 10 times lower than earlier estimates by the EIA, which said the
reserves could reach 5.3 trillion cubic meters.
The combined conventional and unconventional reserves of gas could cover 35-65
years of
Poland
's
demand for natural gas, despite the lower estimates, PGI said.
"With such a result, we have the third-largest reserves of this natural
resource in
Europe
, after
Norway
and
the
Netherlands
,"
Wozniak said. "Now it's time for making big investments."
International oil and gas exploration companies, such as Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM),
Chevron Corp. (CVX) and ConocoPhilips (COP), have bought licenses to explore
shale gas in
Poland
,
making it one of the first countries outside the
U.S.
to
make a serious effort to tap into the resource.
"Only through more wells will we gain detailed information on our
deposits," said Wozniak, adding he didn't expect this report to make
private-sector investors less motivated to conduct exploratory work.
The European's largest ex-communist country uses about 14 billion cubic meters
of gas annually, most of which is imported from
Russia
,
making energy diversification one of its top priorities.
Shale gas plays a fundamental role in that drive.
"We're counting on gas prices to fall," Wozniak said on the sidelines
of a news conference.
PGI's most optimistic estimate of shale gas deposits is 1.9 trillion cubic
meters, the institute said in the report based on 39 archival core samples
extracted between 1950 and 1990.
"The report gives a more precise estimate than before, but is still based
on data from a few dozen exploration wells," said Treasury Minister
Mikolaj Budzanowski. "The last one was made twenty years ago, so more
intensive drilling is needed to accurately determine resources of both crude
and gas."
PGI's
estimate could be revised upward, Wozniak said.