lots of interest12 Feb 2011 15:18
You mean this? I thought it extremely positive, especially the part about the majors being late getting into the shale gas party (so needing to farm in) and the profits being higher than normal.
Personally I don't see the Ukrainians in quite such a bad light as some either, to my mind RPT got what they deserved and it was right and proper that cad made a decent payment to the firm that had done all the work on the licences they took over.
"In recent months, however, interest in Ukraine's unconventional gas sector has soared. Poland's state-owned PKN Orlen said in December 2010 that it had signed a cooperation agreement to explore for shale gas, and a month later Anglo-Russian joint venture TNK-BP announced plans to start shale gas exploration in the eastern Donetsk region in H111, with US$1-2bn of investment earmarked for the project to 2026. ExxonMobil and Shell's interest in Ukrainian shale was reported in a February 2 San Francisco Business Times report.
Energy Independence
This increasing interest can be attributed partly to the broader move into European shale gas by companies that arrived late to the US shale gas boom and wish to avoid missing out again. With European gas prices still high compared with those in the US, a move into Europe also offers companies the chance to apply technologies learnt elsewhere to a market that potentially offers higher returns. Shale gas has also received support from national governments and from the EU policy of increasing the bloc's energy independence.
Ukraine, whose dependence on Russian gas imports has frequently exposed it to the fallout from gas price disputes, most recently in 2009, is also strongly in favour of developing domestic shale gas resources. In July 2010 Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Klyuyev said that the country was trying to attract investment from large IOCs including Shell and Chevron. The Kommersant Ukraina newspaper reported, however, that Shell was preparing to ask Ukraine for changes to legislation, including tax breaks and longer licensing periods. With a large number of companies now apparently looking at involvement in Ukraine, such changes would provide a major spur to the development of shale gas"