Poll - benefits of shale gas should stay in Poland
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
13.06.2011 09:13
Eighty two percent of Poles think that Poland should develop its own technologies to extract shale gas deposits, and keep the profits.
Photo: east news
The poll by OBOP clearly indicates that opinion in country supports Poland taking the lion’s share of the bounty which could flow from shale gas exploration and not the many foreign companies lining up to exploit the resource.
“Poland has already given too many concession to foreign companies,” energy consultant Andrzej Szczesniak told Polish Radio.
The US Energy Information Administration estimates that there could be as much as 5.3 trillion cubic metres of reserves of shale gas in Poland, enough to meet its annual gas consumption of 14 billion cubic metres for decades and would end its reliance of Russian gas supplies.
France’s Total and US oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron have shown interest in the deposits. To date, Poland has issued 86 exploration licenses to domestic and foreign companies. (pg)