{"id":14927,"date":"2025-07-27T07:16:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T07:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roydadnaft.ir\/English\/?p=14927"},"modified":"2025-07-27T07:17:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T07:17:34","slug":"historic-oil-and-gas-discovery-in-polands-baltic-sea-sparks-energy-hopes-and-environmental-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roydadnaft.ir\/English\/14927\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic Oil and Gas Discovery in Poland\u2019s Baltic Sea Sparks Energy Hopes and Environmental Concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

RoydadNaft – <\/a><\/span> Central European Petroleum, a Canadian company, has discovered 200 million barrels of recoverable oil and gas at the Wolin East well in Poland, marking the largest petroleum discovery in Northern Europe in over a decade.<\/p>\n

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Explorers from a small Canadian company say they have found in Poland what could be the largest petroleum discovery in Northern Europe in more than a decade in the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea near the border with Germany.<\/p>\n

The oil company, Central European Petroleum, said in a news release that recent drilling at a well near Swinoujscie, in northwest Poland, had revealed an estimated 200 million barrels of \u201crecoverable\u201d oil and natural gas.<\/p>\n

If confirmed, this trove would be welcome in Poland, which consumes 740,000 barrels of oil a day. Like most European Union members, Poland relies mostly on imports.<\/p>\n

But the prospect of a new oil development on the Baltic coast has already led to environmental concerns in neighboring Germany.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The chief executive of Central European Petroleum, Rolf G. Skaar, said in an interview that the field might eventually produce up to 40,000 barrels of oil a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite a surprise for this to come in offshore Poland,\u201d said Lewis Lawrence, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie, an energy consulting firm. \u201cIt\u2019s not an area where there has been that much offshore activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 raised hopes for oil and gas exploration by Western companies in the former Soviet bloc in Europe, but a burst of drilling activity by companies like Chevron and Exxon Mobil in the 2010s produced mostly disappointment.<\/p>\n

Mr. Lawrence said the find, known as Wolin East, would be the largest in Northern Europe since 2013 if it proved out and could strengthen what had been weak interest in exploration in Europe, especially in the Baltic.<\/p>\n

The European Union has seen a steady decline in oil production in recent decades, partly because of objections to drilling on environmental concerns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Polish discovery was the result of around two decades of exploration, including digging into geological records from the Soviet era, Mr. Skaar said.<\/p>\n

He said Alula Damte and Peter Putnam, the president and chairman of the company, had gone to \u201cold libraries, both in old East Germany and in Poland, scouring for data.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company also drilled several wells in Germany, before figuring that there were likely to be larger hauls across the border in Poland. \u201cWe\u2019ve also been able to get hold of data on both sides of the border, which means we see the bigger picture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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The company is backed by money from family offices in Norway and Canada as well as other private investors, said Mr. Skaar, an oil industry veteran.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Other investors, though, would probably be brought in to aid in developing the discovery. Mr. Lawrence of Wood Mackenzie estimated that the development costs would be $1 billion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The field should be relatively easy to bring online because it is in water about 30 feet deep. It is also only roughly four miles from Swinoujscie, a port that could be used as a base for construction.<\/div>\n
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Swinoujscie already has a liquid natural gas receiving terminal built by Poland to help break its energy dependence on Russia.<\/p>\n

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Mr. Skaar said one approach being considered would involve building an artificial island at the site.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The discovery provoked dismay in Germany, where authorities and locals on the island of Usedom, home to a popular seaside resort, expressed concern that an oil platform visible from the beach would keep tourists away, depriving the region of a crucial source of income.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe project represents a backward-looking industrial policy in terms of climate policy, which runs counter to environmental and tourism interests on the German side,\u201d said Till Backhaus, the minister for the environment of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the state with jurisdiction over the island.<\/p>\n

Krzysztof Galos, under secretary of state in Poland\u2019s Ministry of Climate and Environment, said that a go-ahead to develop the field would require \u201can environmental procedure, almost certainly cross-border in nature, involving German institutions.\u201d Dr. Galos, who is also Poland\u2019s chief national geologist, said that this review would take at least two years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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