Shale Gas One Piece Of The Puzzle In Poland’s Economic Success

A new series compiled by American broadcaster CNN which highlights various country's innovations and influences in business, industry, and culture has targeted shale gas as one of the reasons Poland became the only EU nation to avoid recession.

"While the rest of Europe has battled with recession, Poland remained the only country to keep its head above water," the series says. "Its growth did slow to a crawl, but avoided full recession thanks to its very low private debt, robust domestic demand and flexible currency."

Investing in new technologies has been the key to Poland's success, says Tomasz Moys, director of Polpharma - the country's largest pharmaceutical producer.

And one of these technologies has been shale gas.

Poland has been a hotbed of shale activity over the last year, attracting investors and explorers alike to investigate what could very well be the country's key to energy independence.

Just last week, Chevron said it expected to begin exploration activities in the Lublin region of Poland this fall.

Chevron isn't the only company, however, looking for the unconventional energy source in the region.

To date, the Polish Ministry for the Environment has granted 15 licenses to six companies for the research and exploration of shale plays in the Lublin region alone.

One of those companies, Lane Energy, was the first through the gate to explore Poland's potential.

"We have a million acres in this part of the world and we hope that our testing will show that a lot of that is prospective," Kamlesh Parmar, Country Manager for Lane Energy Poland told CNN.com.

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