Poland, the ELDORADO potential of EUROPEAN GAS blocked by law
Europe condemns itself, for its own blindness, to energy dependence from abroad. Let's look at the case of Poland today.
In 2011, the US Energy Information Administration estimated the shale gas reserves in the Polish subsoil to be 5.3 trillion cubic meters. Other less optimistic estimates then spoke of 3 trillion cubic meters, and subsequently the National Geological Institute (PIG) published in 2012 an estimate reduced to 1,900 billion cubic meters of gas contained in Polish shale deposits . Strange that the Americans, the most expert on the subject, have made a mistake in their forecasts, however 1900 billion cubic meters are more than 10 times the annual supplies from Russia, from 150 to 190 billion cubic meters per year. This makes Poland a country with very high potential in this area and in those years it was already planned not only to be independent of Russian gas, but also to export. These dreams were never realized. Polish gas production has remained more or less low and constant, below what it produced in the 1980s.
Polish gas production 1990 2021
It was not so much the gas that evaporated as the large foreign gas companies that left. The main reason for this disaffection is not to be found in the geological conditions of the Polish shale deposits, but in the absence of a coherent policy on the part of all coalition governments. Democrats Tusk and Kopacz have done nothing before, on the contrary they have discouraged drilling, while not even the PiS government has managed to stimulate the sector and allow it to develop. The result: exploratory drilling has practically ceased since 2016.
now Poland presents itself as the champion of anti-Russian democracy in Eastern Europe. An honorable position, but very fragile, because tomorrow Putin could put Warsaw in the cold, given his high dependence on Russian energy.
Who knows if Poland's new international position will finally convince her to free up her internal energy resources. A country that sits on its own fortune, and does nothing, expecting to live on the fortune of others. A bit like Italy does.
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The article Poland, the ELDORADO potential of EUROPEAN GAS blocked by the laws comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/polonia-il-potenziale-eldorado-del-gas-europeo-bloccato-dalle-leggi/ on Tue, 29 Mar 2022 09:00:30 +0000.