Caspian Report - Issue: 07 - Spring 2014

Frank Umbach
70
The UK government is currently seeking new
ways to simplify the permissions process for
British shale gas projects.
and subjective argumentation as
well as a trend of ignoring the broad
knowledge base and modern methods
of geo-scientific exploration. It
also pointed out that this allegation
of missing data on regional assessments
is not supported by facts. The
political debate moved away from
an outright national ban of hydrofracking
to the question how far to
legislate environmental safeguards
before the national parliamentary
elections in September 2013.
German Federal Institute
for Geosciences and
Natural Resources (BGR)
July 2012 – Germany’s Shale
Gas Reserves:
• Total shale gas reserves: 6.8-22.6
tcm;
• Technically recoverable reserves:
0.7-2.3 tcm (10% of total shale gas
reserves)
• ExxonMobil estimate of Germany’s
exploitable reserves: 827 bcm
• Conventional Gas reserves in comparison:
150 bcm
In November 2013, the new grand
coalition government agreed on a
“temporarily fracking ban”, until environmental
issues like the use of
toxic chemicals are resolved. Until
non-toxic fracking fluids are available,
the agreement is not a strict
ban but rather a temporary moratorium.
The German EU Energy
Commissioner Gunther Oettinger
repeatedly warned the previous
German government against fully
rejecting the shale gas exploration
through fracking technology. In
the summer 2013, three geological
research institutes, the BGR in
Hannover, the German Research
Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) in
Potsdam and Helmholtz Centre for
Environmental Research in Halle
launched a programme to support
the exploration of the country’s
shale gas potential by making the
shale gas industry more environmentally
friendly and the fracking
technology “greener”, by developing
biological alternatives to the
chemicals being used for fracking,
for instance.
Poland
Poland itself still generates more
than 90% of its power from coal,
but is seeking to replace part of
its coal consumption with gas. In
2012, Poland produced 5.5 bcm of
conventional gas in its own country.
But that covered only 30% of
its domestic gas consumption, 16
bcm in total. The shale gas reserve
estimate from the Polish Geological
Institute (PGI) in March 2012
revised downwards the estimates
of national reserves to around 2
tcm, in contrast to EIA’s optimistic
forecast of 5.3 tcm. Its technically
recoverable gas reserves may
amount to just 346-768 bcm. But
these published figures included
only archival data, predominantly
from exploration testing in the
1960s and 1970s. The preliminary
estimate will be upgraded and revised
on an annual basis. But even
the lowest estimate of 346 bcm of