Exxon Mobil quits Poland shale exploration
Exxon Mobil is to cease its shale exploration activities in Poland in a move that will come as a heavy blow to the country’s ambitions of energy independence from Russia.
The company has decided to end its operations in Poland as two gas wells proved unable to produce commercially viable levels of hydrocarbons. Exxon announced in 2011 that it was looking to sell stakes in four shale-gas fields after it acquired the rights to explore the Polish shale in 2008.
Patrick McGinn, a spokesman for Exxon said, “We have completed exploration operations in Poland … There have been no demonstrated sustained commercial hydrocarbon flow rates in our two wells in the Lubin and Podlasie basins.”
BNK Petroleum has also had less than exciting results to their activities in Poland. The company delayed further testing after disappointing results from a well in the Cambrian and Ordovician shale in the north of the Country.
In contrast to this gloomy news, Chevron and ConocoPhillips have both voiced their intentions to continue exploring the Polish shale.
Poland had been banking heavily on major shale finds to wean itself off coal and Russian energy imports. The US Energy Information Association has estimated Poland’s shale reserves to be in the region of 5.3 trillion m3, which, if all of it was recoverable, would be enough to fuel domestic demand for several hundred years.
Edited from various sources by David Bizley
Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/exploration/19062012/exxon_mobil_quits_poland-shale_exploration/
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