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Poland Starts Shale Gas Extraction
Drip, drip, drip. So much for Prince Bandar's reported promise to Vladimir Putin to control the price of oil at an acceptable level.
[La Belle France24] Shale gas extraction has begun at a test well in northern Poland, a first for the EU member, a minister said in a newspaper interview on Wednesday. The firm Lane Energy Poland, controlled by US energy giant ConocoPhilips, has been extracting about 8,000 cubic metres of gas per day since July 21, deputy environment minister Piotr Wozniak said.

"It's good news for Poland, and also for Europe," Wozniak, who is also the country's chief geologist, told the Rzeczpospolita daily about the test production near the town of Lebork.

He said that although the yield was lower than at sites in Canada and the United States, it was the best such result in Europe to date.

Poland uses about 14 billion cubic metres (500 billion cubic feet) of natural gas a year, of which 60 percent is imported from Russia. The country of 38 million people plans to invest 12.5 billion euros ($17.0 billion) in exploration and development of its shale gas sector by 2020.

Poland could have between 800 billion and two trillion cubic metres of exploitable shale gas deposits, according to the Polish Geological Institute.
Posted by: trailing wife 2013-08-30
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=374828