Exxon Mobil drops shale gas plans in Poland

Meanwhile, Ukraine, which has a lot less shale gas than Poland, pins great hopes on a similar project.

After drilling two wells, Exxon Mobil discovered that the amount of gas extracted was insufficient for launching commercial production. As a result, the company that has 6 licenses for exploring shale gas in Poland has decided to get rid of them. This was the second failure of Exxon Mobil. In 2009, the company rejected a similar project in Hungary because when the well was drilled at an explored location water came out through the tube instead of gas.

Now, Ukraine is standing on the queue. According to estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Administration of the Energy Department, the shale gas reserves of Ukraine are about 1.2 trillion cubic meters. And Ukraine occupies the fourth place in Europe after Poland, France and Norway. Its Naftogaz Company has already signed a preliminary agreement with Exxon Mobil and other foreign companies on the development of shale gas. The test drilling will start in September. In fact, Ukraine hopes that this will help it to reduce its dependence on Russian gas and even start exporting gas.

Such a statement is aimed at forcing Russia to make concessions to the gas contract, says director of the National Energy Security Fund, Konstantin Simonov.

“The reason here is that neither Europe nor Ukraine has several components, which are essential for making production of shale gas commercially effective. First, they have no huge drilling machines, which are necessary for consistently drilling horizontally. Second, they have no developed gas pipeline infrastructure. Third, shale gas is linked to serious ecological risks. In the U.S. shale gas is produced in under populated regions. Ukraine can turn a blind eye to ecology, of course, but this cannot be done in Europe. Horizontal drilling is done by attracting more and more territories. The densely populated Europe cannot allow this,” Konstantin Simonov said.

France, Romania and Bulgaria have already banned searching for shale gas because the technology used for this purpose pollutes the environment and even leads to earthquakes. However, several other countries, for example, Germany and Sweden, have not rejected this technology.

The shale boom was trigged in Europe after the U.S. and Canada started successfully implementing this project. However, not everything is well in the U.S. It has excessive gas and as a result, the price of gas has fallen. This has inflicted heavy losses on gas producing companies as they have taken loans in the early stage. Meanwhile, Europe cannot bear such expenses.

Russia’s state-run Gazprom calmly reacts to the fuss over the shale gas. According to its head, Alexei Miller, shale gas is a piquant delicacy but not the main dish.

By Natalya Kovalenko