Tapping up Poland's energy reserves
Michał Pakulniewicz: Currently 30 percent of Poland's gas needs are covered by domestic sources. Do you plan to increase this ratio?
Marek Kossowski: Our main goal is increasing the extraction of gas in the country from around 4.5 billion cubic meters to 5.5 or even six billion cubic meters in 2008-2009. [Poland is] a long way from being self-reliant. We would like to maintain this 30-percent level as a minimum.
MP: Are there really enough gas resources in Poland to realize this goal?
MK: Using new technologies makes it possible to find amounts of gas that are very useful for domestic needs. Some geologists claim that if more funds were donated to exploration and we drilled deeper then we could find natural gas in Poland and there could be fairly large reserves. The cost of extracting Polish gas, is a quarter or a third of the price that we pay for imported gas.
MP: Will there be enough to satisfy domestic demand to the same extent as with domestic gas?
MK: Currently we extract a couple of hundred thousand tonnes of oil and we plan to increase this amount to 1.4 billion tonnes. This will not satisfy domestic demand, but from the company's point of view this would provide significant income with oil prices at their current level. This gives us extra income, which is important for the company. In the last couple of years there were discoveries of oil reserves, especially in western Poland, and the amount of oil extracted increased a few times. This is good news for the company and for the investors.
MP: Do you see the fuel sector as a market with good prospects?
MK: This market has great prospects. Propane-butane gas is highly popular as a fuel right now, but it could easily be substituted with methane, which out of all fuels is the cleanest and most environmentally friendly. We would like to sell gas as an automobile fuel on a larger scale. In Poland we currently have 20 stations with compressed gas and we would like to expand this network significantly. Poczta Polska is one of our partners, but we are also holding talks with several cities to convert buses to gas fuel.
Interview by Michał Pakulniewicz
