PGNiG president Micha³ Szubski,told the Rzeczpospolita daily he was “cautiously optimistic” that the wells in Pomorania could be producing gas on an industrial scale by the middle of 2012.

Finding an independent source of gas could help wean Poland of its reliance on Russian energy sources.

Professor Stanislaw Nagy, a geologist from the University of Science and Technology in Warsaw told the newspaper, however, that there is still no certainty that shale gas production will be profitable.

“Everything will depend on how much gas will flow during the tests,” he says.

The prospect of tapping into Europe’s largest deposit of shale gas has had the world’s biggest multinationals queuing up to set up test drilling sites in Poland.

The US Energy Information Administration released a report in April concluding that Poland could have the largest and most accessible shale gas reserves on the continent.

On his visit to Warsaw this year, US President Barack Obama said the United States is eager to cooperate with Poland in producing shale gas.

Many green protestors, however, are concerned that a rush to tap into Poland’s shale gas deposits could be ruinous for the environment.

French MEP and radical green Jose Bove said in June that, “there are tens of thousands of rural Polish families who will be affected and who will be driven away from their homes due to shale gas exploration."

France banned hydraulic fracturing for shale gas in May this year, a practice long used in the United States whereby water is pumped deep underground at high pressure to extract gas from rock.

Greens claim that this ‘fracking’ spreads chemicals and contaminates the ground near the process, creating a health risk.

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu convened a panel of experts thus summer to look at ways to improve the safety of hydraulic fracturing. (pg)

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