Print this pageAAPG ANNUAL CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION
Making the Next Giant Leap in Geosciences
April 10-13, 2011, Houston, Texas, USA
Remarks from the Recent Recognition of Oil & Gas Potential in Poland
(1) OG Petroleum Consulting, Warszawa, Poland.
(2) Discovery GeoServices Corporation, Forney, TX.
Poland as a country has a long story of exploration and production of oil and gas. The first field in the world was Bobrka Field, dug (yes, dug with shovels) in 1854 in the Carpathian Mountains of southeastern Poland to a depth of 15 meters! The Bobrka Field has since produced 9.5 Million BO and 6.7 BCFG from 163 wells. It was only the beginning of a drilling campaign resulting in 223 fields in the Carpathian region, producing 6.8 Billion BO and 53.7 BCFG to date. Poland currently has reserves of more than 115 Million BO, with the potential for vastly more.
With the success of the operations prior to liberation in 1989, several western companies invested for hydrocarbon exploration in Poland, but with quite limited success and very limited drilling. Now, implementing new techniques and technologies, and aided by the stable and supportive fiscal regime, there is new promise for potential in several petroleum basins.
There is a significant land-rush in Poland for shale gas exploration concessions, particularly in the Baltic and Lublin Basins of northeastern Poland, where drilling and completions are already underway in the unconventional shales of the Ordovician and Silurian. Although more difficult to produce, these large basins are expected to yield good production from thousands of wells.
The Cambrian clastic sequences, covering nearly half of Poland, have oil or gas shows in at least half the wells drilled. With modern techniques and ideas, this appears to be a viable, large, tight gas and conventional oil play. The Devonian and Carboniferous “Old Red” facies tight gas sandstones, and the thick dolomites and limestones of the Middle Devonian to Lower Carboniferous are also possible conventional oil and gas and huge tight gas resource targets. The Permian - Rotliegend facies also has enormous potential, with more than 500 meters of gas saturated, tight sandstones in several areas. The same would be related to the Zechstein carbonates, with conventional oil and gas potential and big central-basin gas accumulations. Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous successions also have hydrocarbon shows all around Poland, expressed already with several oil and gas fields in the Carpathian Foredeep basement in southern Poland.
The time has come to acknowledge that Poland is once again a player in the world oil and gas market.