Abstract
Poland has been estimated to possess large volumes of technically recoverable shale gas resources, which has raised national hopes for increasing energy security and building export capacity. In this paper, we aim to examine political claims and hopes that Poland could achieve natural gas self-sufficiency and even become a gas exporter by harnessing domestic shale potential. We do so by relying on well-by-well production experience from the Barnett Shale in the USA to explore what scope of shale gas extraction, in terms of the number of wells, would likely be required to achieve such national expectations. With average well productivity equal to the Barnett Shale, at least 420 wells per year would be necessary to meet the domestic demand of 20 Bcm in 2030. Adding Poland’s potential export capacity of five Bcm of gas per year would necessitate at least 540 wells per year. Such a significant amount of drilling and hydraulic fracturing would require reconsideration and verification of national energy security plans and expectations surrounding shale gas production. A more informed public debate on technical aspects of extraction would be required, as extensive fracking operations could potentially have implications in terms of environmental risks and local land-use conflicts.
Highlights
During the last two decades, the widespread use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (‘‘fracking’’) caused a surge of gas and oil production from shale deposits in the USA
We focus on assessing the scope of production in terms of the number of wells for three scenarios: (1) Low Scenario—gas self-sufficiency as of 2016, meeting the demand of 16 billion cubic meters (Bcm); (2) Base Scenario—gas self-sufficiency in 2030, meeting the projected demand of 20 Bcm according to the national strategy ‘‘Energy Policy of Poland until 2030’’ (MG 2009); and (3) High Scenario—gas self-sufficiency in 2030 plus 5 Bcm of gas for export
We explored quantitatively possible Polish shale gas futures by starting with a set of assumed demand scenarios based on gas demand in 2016 (16 Bcm) and projected demand for 2030 (20 Bcm), as well as a high case with gas self-sufficiency in 2030 and export capacity via the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal (25 Bcm) (Table 3)
Summary
During the last two decades, the widespread use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (‘‘fracking’’) caused a surge of gas and oil production from shale deposits in the USA. Due to lack of sufficient amount of test wells and credible, up-to-date geological data, the assessments often speculated the volumetric potential by using productive American shale plays as analogues for estimating recoverable resource potential outside the USA (Kama & Kuchler, 2019; Kuchler, 2017; McGlade et al, 2013). Following several such estimates (e.g., EIA/ARI, 2011, 2013), Poland was highlighted as having one of the largest (technically) recoverable shale gas resource potentials among member-states of the European Union (EU) and was quickly deemed to become the first EU country where a shale gas ‘‘revolution’’ could take place outside the USA (Kuhn & Umbach, 2011). As of July 2012, Poland led the way toward the first European gas production from shales, with 111 concessions for prospecting and exploration of unconventional gas resources (MOS , 2016)
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