CAMARILLO, Calif., Jan. 16 (UPI) -- BNK Petroleum, which has headquarters in California, said it was upbeat about the shale potential in Poland following the start of a drilling campaign.
BNK said it started a horizontal drilling program at Polish shale well Gapowo B-1 and expects to spend the next 30 days on the operation. The company said it was targeting gas deposits encountered in similar operations, where "the average and maximum total gas readings were much higher than those seen in the company's other Baltic Basin wells."
New drilling technologies like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, dubbed fracking, are used in shale deposits to access oil and gas reserves previously out of reach. That helped put the United States in a leadership position in terms of production of those resources.
Poland is one of the Eastern European countries thought to be rich in shale gas, though the U.S. Energy Information Administration said optimism has waned because of "unsatisfactory exploration results."
BNK Petroleum said Wednesday its analysis of previous drilling samples leads it to believe the area is "highly prospective for shale gas."
