Abstract
This study will first examine how, after belittling shale gas' growing significance and game changing potential on the global energy market, Gazprom seemed to change its mind on this unconventional energy source.
It will then explore to what extent Poland's estimated shale gas reserves are responsible for this recent evolution.
The study will ultimately attempt to weigh up the relevance of the Russian group's precautions towards shale gas by pondering this energy source's likelihood to be a real "game changer" in Europe, and more specifically in Poland.
First qualifying shale gas as a "joke" and systematically downplaying its impact, Gazprom recently mitigated its stand with regard to this unconventional energy source's game changing potential on the world energy market in the long run . This evolution was triggered by several factors.
To begin with, not only did the United States (US) overtake Russia in terms of gas production thanks to its shale gas flourishing industry in 2009, but as a spill over effect, the country also started to export its henceforth unneeded (and previously imported from Russia) Liquefied Natural Gas across the Atlantic at a cheaper price than Gazprom. Whether this caused the Russian group to postpone its natural gas extraction project in the Shtokman gas field until 2016 is unclear. But the fact that Gazprom decided so precisely in those times of US shale gas extraction's boom led many observers to associate the two phenomena, particularly since "Gazprom had planned to send as much as 90 per cent of Shtokman's extracted natural gas to the North America" .
