Yesterday (13.06.2012), a governmental press conference was scheduled to take place, where the Ministry of Environment was supposed to publish the first draft of the Shale Gas Act for Poland – a piece of legislation specifically related to shale gas operations in this country.
Since December 2011, the government is working on this new Act. It is not certain when the first draft will now be released. If the government would manage to publish it shortly and everything else would go according to the plan, we could expect the new law to come in force in mid/late 2013.
According to informal information, the government would like to regulate the following issues in the new Act:
- Creation of NOKE (Narodowy Operator Kopalin Energetycznych) – a public company that will oversee the production of gas and oil in Poland. It would have regulatory and geological powers for each of the concessions granted.
- Creation of Fundusz Węglowodorowy – a public fund that will invest some of the national proceeds from the production of gas in education (including higher education), research and development.
- Taxation of production of oil and gas.
- Increase the participation of self-governments in the income from production of oil and gas.
- New procedures re. exploration and production of oil and gas and re. concession granting.
- Enhancement of environmental procedures and those related to consultations with local communes re. the granting of concessions for shale gas operations.
Poland has a new Geological and Mining Law since January, 2012. It is not yet certain how the relations between these two laws will be structured. Probably the new Shale Gas Act will be a piece of specific legislation subordinate to the regulations of the Geological and Mining Law, which will have to be also amended.