This month, Poland assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union, which it joined in 2004. This marks substantial progress since union activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa led his fellow shipyard workers in Gdansk through 1989's "soft" revolution, away from Soviet domination toward a capitalist democracy.
Now, the country wants to establish a measure of energy independence as well. Warsaw recently signed a memo of understanding with French giant Areva to build its first nuclear power plant by 2020, and it plans to import liquefied natural gas on the Baltic coast near Gdansk by 2015.
But natural gas supply from Polish shale plays is the bigger hope, and international companies are on board. "They are very aware the Americans are coming," says one consultant.
"I've worked in Indonesia, South America…I've never seen an atmosphere as positive as here in Poland. They are very keen to make this a success. But it all goes back to the rocks, and we'll see what they deliver to us," says Doug Bentley, country manager for Schlumberger in Warsaw.
Seven shale wells have been drilled so far: two by ConocoPhillips, two by ExxonMobil, two by BNK Petroleum Inc., and one by the state oil company, all vertical. This summer, BNK spuds its third well, and ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil will re-enter theirs to drill laterals and frac them.
In 2011 and 2012, as many as two dozen shale wells could be drilled in Poland by the likes of ExxonMobil, Marathon Oil Corp., Eni and Chevron. Most of the action is occurring north of Warsaw in the Baltic Basin, where Paleozoic Silurian and Ordovician shales are found.
Talisman Energy Inc. has collected new seismic data. The Calgary firm farmed in to a 50% partner, U.K.-based San Leon Energy Plc, which entered Poland in 2009. San Leon now has 880,000 acres. They plan to drill their Gdansk West concession in September (seismic was being shot recently), the Braniewo concession in October and the Szczawno in December.
Lane Energy Poland, a unit of the U.K.'s 3Legs Group, formed a joint venture with ConocoPhillips in 2009 to explore Lane's six concessions covering nearly 1 million acres in the Baltic Basin. They shot some 3-D seismic that year. In September 2010, they and Schlumberger announced their Lebien LE #1, the first well drilled specifically for shale gas in Poland.
The Lebien underwent a single-stage fracture stimulation in November 2010 followed by a period of testing and a limited amount of flaring. Lane says it needs "to establish the likely volumes of gas that can be produced from a well with a horizontal section and a multistage frac." In May of this year the partners began drilling a second well in the Lebien area, and the first horizontal there.
In Poland, it is too soon to talk about well costs, flow rates and shale economics. "I think you are either going to have some good momentum by year-end or not, and we'll see if it pans out…but I think it's going to take another three or four years," says a London observer. "There are a lot of challenges…The biggest question people have is, is the shale business model going to work here?"
Geopolitics
Production of natural gas from conventional reservoirs occurs against a backdrop of geopolitical currents that may affect the pace of shale development. Vertically integrated, state-owned monopoly Polskie Gornictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo SA, or PGNiG (pronounced PigNig), dominates the energy scene. Poland's largest oil and gas company, PGNiG is engaged in production, storage and transportation, gas distribution to consumers, gas export and import.
Poland still gets about 60% of its energy from indigenous coal and lignite. But over the past five years, gas has taken up another 13% of consumption. Demand has averaged about 1.7 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of gas per day, with only 0.6 billion of that coming from its own production. PGNiG's contracts with OAO Gazprom for Russian natural gas, and permission to transport Russian gas to Europe through the country, are valid till 2022 and 2019, respectively.
Because Poland imports about 70% of its natural gas needs from Russia, it now hopes to become a leader in shale-gas production in Europe. Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Bronislaw Komorowski have repeatedly said they support shale drilling in Poland.
"Poland is facing a great chance," said Tusk at a press conference in April.
Many companies from North America and Western Europe think so, too. The land grab that began in 2008 is now largely over, with more than 60 concessions granted for five years, based on a work program. Today the farm-in, farm-out game is starting, as new entrants seek a toehold and existing players sell down their risk. Total just farmed in for 49% of a large concession in southeast Poland's Lublin Basin that is held by ExxonMobil.
The economy that underpins Polish objectives is robust. Gross domestic product is expected to rise 4% in 2012. New stadiums are under construction in Warsaw and Gdansk, as Poland will host the European soccer championship in 2012. Terminals are being expanded at Chopin (Warsaw) and Lech Walesa (Gdansk) airports. Billboards in the suburbs tout Disney on Ice and Levis. The French are building malls and the Austrians, office buildings. The Warsaw Business Journal says Poland's economy has fared better than most in the EU since the economic meltdown that began in 2008.
Cooperation between the U.S. and Poland on the shale opportunity goes beyond U.S. service companies opening offices in Poland. For example, a group from Warsaw visited the University of West Virginia in March and toured a Chesapeake Energy Corp. shale-well site in the state. U.S. operators and academics speak almost monthly at shale conferences in Warsaw.
Lobbying to ease the way has quietly taken place for a couple of years at the highest levels, including officials from the Department of Energy and reportedly, even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to Warsaw-based CEE Consulting Group.
President Obama's Warsaw visit in May included talks on shale technology transfer, and a plea for simplification of the visa process between the two nations.
Some factions in the Polish government take a cautious view. "…we do not see any prospect for large-scale switching from coal to gas in the Polish energy mix," wrote Wojciech Jasinski, chair of the economic committee of the Polish Parliament, in a report for the World Economic Forum. Instead, gas can be used for peaking power usage, and for export, as part of the overall energy mix.
"Despite the international excitement, the official take from the Polish side, as expressed repeatedly by Jacek Jezierski, chief national geologist and under-secretary of state for the Ministry of Environment, is cautious to the point of pessimism. According to Jezierski's public statements…the first reserve estimations will only be available in four to five years, with the first potential (with the emphasis on potential) production in 10 to 15 years," says CEE's report.
Observers contend as many as 200 wells could be drilled over the next five years, but there continues to be skepticism, says CEE managing director Andrew de Roy. This is based on constraints for pipelines and gas gathering and processing facilities, questions about how many additional rigs and frac crews can be brought to Poland—and in what time frame—and a slow-moving bureaucracy that may not be equipped yet to handle a U.S.-style rush for well permits. For example, a rig from the Czech Republic drilled ExxonMobil's two wells and is drilling ConocoPhillips/Lane's horizontal well, and Calgary's Ensign Drilling is reportedly eyeing Poland as well.
Poland's potential
Estimates of the shale-gas opportunity here vary widely. Internal Polish numbers are based on 1950s, Soviet-era data and plentiful cores to basement. Estimates from IHS, Hart Energy's "Global Shale Gas Study," Wood Mackenzie and others indicate anywhere from 1.5- to 5.3 trillion cubic meters of resource in place.
The International Energy Agency says Poland has 187 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of technically recoverable resource from the Silurian and Ordovician shales. At current consumption rates, this amount of shale gas could total 300 years' of supply for Poland, the IEA says.
"The Silurian graptolitic shales have attracted the most activity to date…these shales have high silica content, ranging from 25% to 63%, which would make hydraulic fracturing effective," says Laura Atkins, co-author of the Hart study. The Baltic Basin in the north, full of Silurian shale, has a higher resource concentration than in the rest of Poland, with an estimated 145 Bcf per square mile, according to a study released in February by Advanced Resources International, and commissioned by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
"Given an 8,850-mile prospective area, the risked shale gas in place is 514 Tcf. Based on the favorable reservoir properties and mineralogy, we estimate a risked, technically recoverable shale-gas resource of 129 Tcf for the Baltic Basin."
ION Geophysical of Sugar Land, Texas, is about to launch PolandSPAN, a multiclient, four-phase 2-D seismic survey for shale gas covering all of Poland. Phase I covers 2,200 kilometers in the shale basins. ION is wrapping up approvals now with the Ministry of Environment, and first shooting is expected this fall after the harvest is in. Two state-owned contractors will do the work.
Data will be integrated with existing gravity, magnetics, well and seismic data, and with new magneto-telluric data ION acquires coincident with the survey.
ION is collaborating with three Polish institutes to design and interpret this regional survey: the Polish Geological Institute (akin to the U.S.G.S.), the Institute of Geophysics and the Institute of Geological Science.
"We started over a year ago, and some people said no way would this happen. This is the first multiclient survey ever undertaken in Poland, and the benefit is, you will be able to geologically tie in all three basins," says Vinton Buffenmyer, PolandSPAN program manager.
Currently, concession holders are allowed to shoot seismic only over their own holdings and not on a wider regional basis, across other concessions or basins.
Another big issue is how to apply modern techniques to image the Polish shales, because they mostly lie below the evaporite or salt layer called the Permian Zechstein, which can mask the seismic image.
Many questions
Shale activity here is better described as exploration, not development—and certainly it is not yet in "gas-manufacturing" mode, as some describe U.S. shale activity. Indeed, some estimate that mode is as many as 10 years away.
Last summer, the first shale-related fracs were done. Halliburton conducted its first shale frac for PGNiG at the Markowola # 1. Also last summer, ConocoPhillips and partner Lane Energy Poland Sp. z o.o., a subsidiary of the U.K.'s 3Legs Group, drilled their first well targeting shale, the ?ebien LE1, on their concession near the Baltic Sea. They tested gas from a single fracture stimulation done by Schlumberger, and plan to drill a horizontal well from the same pad.
"Shale development in Europe will be much more technical in nature and less a statistical play like it is in the U.S.," James Elston, director of Palladian Energy Ltd., told a shale conference in Warsaw in April.
The service companies are gearing up. "We have 16 clients here, but we are really still early in this thing," says Bentley. "There are 13,000 square kilometers in the Barnett. Thousands of wells have been drilled there and information is readily available. In the Baltic Basin, however, there are 100,000 square kilometers, but few wells. Since June 2010, we have drilled five new wells and the evaluation is ongoing."
Bentley says the first two wells Schlumberger worked on were drilled rapidly, coming in under the type curve by about 30%, indicating what new technology can do in Poland. The wells took less than 30 days, and were drilled to a depth comparable to a deeper Barnett well. He cites rotary steering and new casing procedures as key to the promising results.
Schlumberger is creating a core-analysis lab in Warsaw with its subsidiary, TerraTek, and it plans to open a new equipment yard and drilling mud facility in second-half 2011. One of its two frac crews came to Poland from Germany and the other is a newly formed crew from the U.S.
"This play is fledgling at best," says Mike Mullen, chief operating officer of Realm Energy International Corp., which has three concessions. "Our strategy is not to rush into it. We don't know if we have a play here yet. We all have a lot of questions and it's going to be trial and error."
The shales in Poland tend to be older (deeper) and thicker than in the U.S. Optimism abounds, but so does a lack of sufficient modern data. For now, companies must rely on the Polish Geological Institute's mostly Soviet-era cores, well logs and 2-D seismic data.
Water issues and the need for disposal wells are fairly unknown. Says Bentley: "We are still learning what's going to come out of the rock. We are dealing with rocks that have been in the oven another 40- or 50 million years versus rocks in North America, so does the cake look different?"
In the U.S., some 10,000 horizontal wells have been drilled, whereas in Europe, fewer than 500 have, and maybe 20 of those were in a shale formation. In Poland, two horizontals wells will be drilled this year. Much work needs to be done, from modern core and 3-D seismic analysis, to the most important thing of all—stimulation of the first dozen horizontal wells with the latest multifrac methods.
Poland is part of the central European Permian Basin. Three basins are prospective for shale gas: the Baltic, the Podlasie and the Lublin. The shales are found from 8,000 to 13,000 feet. Geologists say it is a pretty quiet environment tectonically, and does not have major issues such as karsting. Thermal maturities vary across the basin.
A huge fault zone runs diagonally from northwest to southeast Poland, forming the edge of the Baltic Basin, a Silurian-age accumulation. Southwest of this fault zone, the Silurian is very thin, and found at 6,500 meters (about 19,000 feet). It gets shallower as it trends northeast; it thickens to the west, and is 2,000 meters (about 6,500 feet) thick in some places. The Ro (vitronite reflectance) also is higher to the west.
The Silurian shale is going to be found primarily northeast of the fault line. Vintage data make it unclear what the Ro and total organic content may be. "You go from zero organic content in the Upper Silurian to upwards of 12% to 17% in the lower zones," says Realm's Mullen.
"We don't know where the frac barriers are yet," says BNK's Jim Hill, vice president of new ventures, whose master's thesis was on California's Monterey shale.
Cost estimates "are all over the board," says one observer. Any conclusions about economics would be premature, but Poland's fiscal regime is favorable, with corporate income tax of 19%, a 1% to 4% royalty on production; and gas prices near $9 per thousand cubic feet.
Land acquisition costs here have been less than a dollar per acre, far more affordable than in the white-hot U.S. shale plays. The land is held by the Polish state. At present, operators pay an annual lease rental to local landowners to compensate them for surface damage, or for not being able to farm acreage during seismic or drilling activity.
Applying lessons from the Barnett and Marcellus shales, operators here vow to make community relations and public education a big priority, working with citizens of the towns and gminas (counties). Some Poles are familiar with the anti-fracing movie "Gasland," and they are aware of France's potential ban on fracing. Europe is known for its strict environmental protection laws, many coming from EU directives.
In sum, optimism is high, questions are many, and only two or three companies have drilled shale wells so far. Here's a look at what a few of the players are doing.
BNK
BNK Petroleum has seismic shoots pending in Poland and Germany later this year if permits come through. It has applied for blocks in France as well.
The Camarillo, California, company holds 1.1 million net acres in Poland, roughly twice the size of Devon Energy Corp.'s Barnett acreage. CEO Regener says BNK has already recouped its 55-cents-an-acre cost by farming down its three concession blocks in the dry-gas window of the Baltic Basin to companies from Austria, Italy and Canada. (PGNiG is not a partner currently.)
In July BNK planned to spud its third vertical test, the Starogard S-1.
"Our whole philosophy is that this is another shale basin; it just happens to be in Poland," says Wolf Regener, president and chief executive. BNK started applying for blocks in 2008. "Our G&G guys looked at 40 countries and narrowed it down to seven or so. Poland rose to the top. But is it going to be economic? We don't know yet."
"Whatever they are doing in the States (for safety, water protection and environment), we will do here. Don't let any fires start," says BNK chairman Ford Nicholson. "The biggest challenge is managing expectations, whether from the Polish government or from investors."
With boots on the ground, BNK is relying on its Woodford shale experience, and a Barnett model, as guidelines. "We are in the phase of drilling science wells now," says Regener. "Once we go to the development phase, we want to bring in a modern North American rig. We plan to use a multiwell pad and drill long laterals. The U.S. service companies keep telling us, 'Don't worry about rigs or equipment. You find it, and we'll be there.'"
Adds Martin Robert, vice president of engineering and operations: "You are not constrained to a 640-acre plot here like you would be in the U.S., so we expect we can drill longer laterals here. We are not tied to lease lines and hopefully that will make up for some of the economic issues."
BNK's first well, the Wytowno #1, was drilled to 3,500 meters (about 11,480 feet) on the Slawno concession west of Gdansk. It took 38 days, including a directional kick. Completed in February, strong gas shows were seen in 221 meters of Lower Silurian, Ordovician and Cambrian shales, and 450 meters in the Middle and Upper Silurian. The strongest shows were in the Ordovican interval, which was about 272 feet thick. This represents a thicker section than seen in previous wells drilled in updip, structurally higher positions, Hill says, suggesting an increasing thickness trend that may continue into deeper portions of the basin.
We saw propane, ethane, pentane, all of them. This means the Ro should be less than 1.7%," says Hill. "We had to deviate the wellbore to get away from a fault. Then myself and three geologists spent weeks going through a lot of core. That was a lot of fun."
Approximately 200 sidewall cores were taken to evaluate the physical parameters of the rock. TerraTek and Salt Lake City-based InGrain are analyzing the cores and open-hole logs from the first two wells, Wytowno #1 and Lebork #1. These labs face a backlog of up to four months due to strong demand, Wegener says.
Polish authorities are welcoming and have established a good dialogue with operators, but, says Wolf, they are trying to find out more precisely what Poland requires in the regulatory arena, and how to obtain drilling permits more quickly. It seems learning is taking place on all sides.
"Things just take a little longer here, and this is something that needs to be clarified," he says. "For example, in April 2010 we asked if we need to submit a tender for using Polish equipment, and in December, they finally came back and said, 'No, you don't need to tender for equipment.' And this is not Oklahoma, where if you need a certain amount of casing, you just call someone and it will soon be there."
Because this is all so new and rigs and frac crews are less plentiful than in U.S. plays, well costs are higher. Too, many of the shales are deeper.
Regener is upbeat. "We've hired our G&G side and now we are hiring our operations side. If we see any bottlenecks, we'll bring things over from the U.S. I've already talked to the water-handling guys and they are willing to come over. We'll recycle everything. We want to be proactive. We talk to the local people and tell them what we are doing."
Realm and Halliburton
At press time, the board of Realm Energy, a British Columbia-based independent, had hired GMP Securities Ltd. to conduct a strategic review of alternatives for its Polish holdings, believing the company's stock doesn't reflect the inherent value.
Realm was formed to build a diversified oil- and gas-shale portfolio in Europe. It has a partnership with Halliburton Consulting to "sift through mountains of data," says chief operating officer Mullen. It is analyzing old 2-D data and shooting more, applying to various governments for concessions and drilling permits, and hoping to pick a drilling location in Germany by year-end.
In Poland, it has amassed 635,000 gross acres (465,000 net) on two concessions in the Baltic Basin and one in the Podlasie. An independent engineering report says that on the northern blocks alone, the original gas in place is an estimated 100 Bcf per square mile, or about 156 million cubic feet per acre.
Its largest license, the Gniew, covers 294,296 acres and is held 100%. It is three years old, with two remaining, so Realm is negotiating to extend it through well commitments, says executive chairman and CEO Craig Steinke.
"We don't have a near-term drilling obligation to hold the land, so that affords us time to be methodical. A lot of wells are going down around us, and our goal is to shoot some seismic by year-end, all designed to select a location. We'd like to see some wells go down on our concession next year, maybe spilling over into early 2013."
Realm is proceeding with a regional geological study and reprocessing older 2-D seismic on its northern blocks at the moment. It plans to apply for permits to conduct further 2-D seismic acquisition as well.
"In the Baltic Basin, most of the older seismic was not shot with the idea of looking at the Silurian or Cambrian shales; it was shot to look at shallower targets," Mullen says.
"In Poland you get your contract to shoot seismic and take a number. It has a lot to do with the capacity of Geofizyka Turun, the Polish company. And I'd like to wait until late summer when the crops are off the fields so it will be less disruptive to the farmers. They are happy to have us there and they know what we are doing. They help us conduct citizen meetings in what would be considered their town halls. One of our concessions has a big lake on it, so we don't want to be disruptive to the tourists and run around like an 800-pound gorilla."
There is definite cooperation between E&P companies to share scarce rigs and even scarcer information, according to Halliburton's Mark Swift, area manager for Continental Europe, who has been posted to Warsaw since February.
"A lot of drilling will occur in the fourth quarter, but any stimulation or frac activity will likely be next year in the second and third quarters. I don't see any equipment problems now, but if this takes off, I would see some."
Swift says there is about 100,000 horsepower of pressure-pumping capacity in Europe, so it would not take much to create a tight market.
Last year Halliburton hired 10 Polish engineering graduates who are now training in the U.S., scattered in several basins.
"I think by next summer, we'd like to see as many as 100 Poles based here and a few expats. We are building a new base and bringing in assets. We plan to hire quite a few people, and use as many local vendors as we can."
Marathon Oil
At press time,Mitsui & Co. Ltd. became the first Japanese firm involved in European shale gas, agreeing to take a 9% working interest in 10 of Marathon's Paleozoic shale concessions in Poland. Another partner is a unit of Nexen Inc., which owns a 40% working interest in the concessions.
In early 2009, the company started evaluating European shale opportunities and Poland rose to the top of the list. Country manager Carl Hubacher Jr. arrived in Warsaw last June and now has a dozen employees. Marathon has accumulated some 2.3 million gross acres on 11 concessions.
"We are excited about this, but we're trying to let everyone know that this is still exploration, and risky. We don't intend to overpromise."
Most of Marathon's concessions lack any seismic data, so the company plans to get a 2-D program kicked off this year, of about 1,500 kilometers, with Global Geophysical.
Marathon plans to begin the first survey in the fourth quarter, with the first two vertical wells planned for the fourth quarter, and seven or eight wells in 2012.
Currently, it is evaluating rig tenders from companies in Poland, other EU countries and the U.S. It appears some U.S. rigs do not meet EU electric requirements and road restrictions as to height and width. "There are fewer than 50 land rigs in Europe, so this will be a challenge if activity picks up," he says. "We are looking for fit-for-purpose rigs because mobilizing and demobilizing is expensive."
In April, Marathon signed a deal with a wholly owned subsidiary of Calgary's Nexen Inc., whereby the latter acquired a 40% working interest in 10 of Marathon's 11 concessions in Poland. Says Annell R. Bay, Marathon senior vice president of worldwide exploration, "This partnership provides not only financial risk mitigation, but combines the extensive unconventional drilling and completion experience of Marathon and Nexen to fully evaluate the potential of these concessions."
Marathon's experience in the Bakken shale can be exported to Poland and elsewhere. In Marathon's global portfolio, Poland fits into what it classifies as impactful exploration, Bay says. At least for now, it doesn't have onshore shale concessions in other European countries.
"The fairway in Poland has the right attributes for a shale play," she says. "The 20 or so wells that have been drilled across the fairway look promising, regarding total organic content, thickness, depth and thermal maturity. The gas market looks positive, but we must consider population density and infrastructure, too. The federal and local governments have concerns at all levels, but they are supportive."
To that end, the company has hired a native Polish speaker to manage its government affairs and has initiated a public education effort to address any fear or mistrust. The company will meet with local officials, citizens, police and fire brigades prior to drilling. "We will do baseline surveys of water and soil quality before we drill," says Hubacher.
"We are committed to doing things right. We feel we have to earn the people's trust and get out ahead, and show that we intend to do what we say we're going to do."
Looking ahead
At the company's annual meeting this spring, ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson said that by 2030, natural gas will surpass coal as the world's second-largest energy source, right behind crude oil. The company has 6 million acres outside the U.S. that are prospective for natural gas.
ExxonMobil is focused on the Podlasie Basin in the southeastern portion of Poland. It is currently drilling its second shale-gas well, Siennica #1, on the Minsk Mazowiecki license there.
ExxonMobil Exploration & Production Poland Sp. z o.o. (EMEPP) holds six exploration concessions: two in the Lublin Basin bordering Ukraine (the Che?m and Werbkowice), and four in the Podlasie Basin (Minsk Mazowiecki, Wolomin, Wodynie-Luków and Legionowo). These holdings total approximately 1.6 million gross acres.
In May, Total farmed in to the Chelm and Werbkowice acreage for a 49% interest. These five-year concessions were granted in March 2009 and December 2008, respectively. ExxonMobil has acquired seismic and is currently evaluating a well it drilled on the Chelm acreage.
"Poland is sitting on quite a bit of gas, and could perhaps even export it in the future," says CEE Consulting's director of operations, Preston Smith. "We think Russia is worried about this, because it could change the geopolitical nature of Europe. The guys here who have hit gas, they are not saying it in the press. No one is shouting eureka, but they are not saying this isn't for real, either.
"There are all kinds of timelines to production, five-, six-, seven years. What is the Polish government going to do about infrastructure? Somebody has to go say to Gazprom, 'We are going to take less gas from you and we are going to compete.'"
Smith and others say some E&P companies are still sitting on the sidelines, waiting to hear about flow results from the first wells before they get involved in Poland.
"Poland hasn't been very lucky historically (through European wars), so maybe this time, it is," says Smith.
The developing partnership between the Polish government and Western companies will no doubt bring about a sea change in European gas supply and the geopolitical atmosphere around energy. As Rick (Humphrey Bogart) said in the final scene of "Casablanca", "Louie, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship."
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