WARSAW, January 24, 15:05 /ITAR-TASS/. Privately-owned oil and gas company San Leon Energy Plc operating in Europe and North Africa announced successful results of shale gas drilling in Poland.
The company’s report says the well Lewino-1G2 is located in the Baltic basin where San Leon holds 50 licences. Its production potential is 200,000-400,000 cubic feet a day (6,000-11,000 cubic metres), which is the most promising shale gas drilling result in Poland. Commercial extraction is planned to start this year.
Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom was earlier reported to find Poland’s striving for independence from Russian gas economically unfeasible. According to the general director of Gazprom Export, Alexander Medvedev shale gas production is much costlier than conventional production. Even the U.S., the sole country producing large volumes of shale gas, did not have any effective business model yet, and production costs three times exceeded the sales price, he added. Medvedev believes shale gas in Poland has only regional prospects but cannot be a viable alternative to Russian gas.
The current gas consumption in Poland is 14 billion cubic metres a year. The country imports 10 billion out of this amount from Russia producing the rest on its territory.