Total E&P, an affiliate of the French petroleum company Total S.A. (the fourth largest extracting company behind Shell, BP and ExxonMobil), signed a contract with the Canadian EuroGas Inc. for the assessment of the deposits of shale gas in Western Ukraine.
Professor Yuriy Koltun of Ukraine heads geological exploration for EuroGas in Eastern Europe. The gas-bearing basin in the so-called Lviv-Lublin hollow is today considered one of the most promising in the world.
ExxonMobil and Chevron have plans to develop the Polish part of the basin, while EuroGas Polska owns the rights to develop the Ukrainian part of the deposits in the Lviv-Volyn Basin.
If the exploration confirms the prospects of the reserves of shale gas in Western Ukraine by the end of 2010, Total intends to buy out the rights for its extraction from EuroGas and in 2011 will begin industrial drilling, said MP Mykhailo Volynets.
According to expert assessments, the volumes of
extraction of shale gas in Western Ukraine could reach 15-20 bn cu. m.
a year. This is more than half the volume that Ukraine will purchase
from Russia this year. Seeing as the market price of shale gas is
currently half the usual price, cheap gas could catapult the profit
margins of many energy-bearing sectors of Ukrainian industry.
Source: ProUA
