Since October 12th, RAG has held 26.3% of the shares in Saponis Investments Sp. z.o.o., Warsaw, Poland. Other shareholders are BKX International Holdings Inc., a fully-owned subsidiary of BNK Petroleum (US) Inc. (26.9%), Sorgenia E&P Spa, Milan, Italy, and LNG Energy, Vancouver, Canada, through its subsidiary (20%). BNK Petroleum (US) Inc. is operator of Saponis.
Via Saponis, RAG holds a share in 3 exploration licences in Northern Poland. The „Slupsk“ and „Starogard“ licences were granted by the Polish licensing authorities on June 2nd, 2009, the „Slawno“ licence on June 25th, 2009. The licences and associated usufructuary rights were granted for a period of 3 years. In total, RAG holds shares in Polish concessions covering an area of 2951 km2.
The exploration target of Saponis are Ordovician and Silurian shales (shale gas formations) of the Baltic Basin in Northern Poland. These dense shale formations which are several million years old and rich in organic material form the source rocks of oil and gas deposits in the Baltic Basin and contain most of the gas. This is why they provide great potential for covering Poland’s future gas demand.
As the permeability of such shales is very low and they are no standard reservoirs, deposits have to be explored and produced by using special methods. In the past years, such deposits were explored and developed successfully in the USA (such as Barnett Shale in the Dallas-Fort Worth region). The share of domestic US shale gas production increased sharply in the past years and made declining US gas production pick up again. In Europe, no comparable commercial shale gas projects have been initiated yet. RAG and their partners have decided to launch a pilot project for potential shale gas development through Saponis in Poland.