Natural gas will be produced, among others, near Kramarzówka, where PGNiG discovered deposits estimated to be as large as 12 billion m³. They are sitting in rock formations which have never been in commercial use. Natural gas from Kramarzówka is expected to begin flowing in mid-2019, once the pipeline comes online.

“Kramarzówka shows that there is a bright future for natural gas extraction in Podkarpacie Region. We estimate that within the next 5 years local production will rise to 1.75 billion m³ a year, or by 28% compared to 2017 when we produced 1.37 billion m³. We are committed to unlocking the potential of Podkarpacie Region, and with this in mind two years ago we embarked on a strategy which sets new goals for exploration of natural gas. Domestic resources are the most reliable and commercially viable sources of energy,” said Piotr Woźniak, President of PGNiG SA.

PGNiG has been pursuing its new exploration and extraction strategy since 2016. It identified Podkarpacie Region for an exploration project which involved the biggest three-dimensional seismic imagining in Europe and scanned nearly 1,300 km² around Przemyśl–Kramarzówka–Rybotycze-Fredropol. PGNiG estimates that natural gas resources in this area are as large as ca. 50 billion m³. Under the new strategy PGNiG will also scale up its drilling operations: between 2016 and 2022 PGNiG will deploy in the region ca. 120 exploratory wells.

“More than forty wells have already been drilled - for example near Kańczuga, Krasne, Kuryłówka and Żyraków - and 32 returned positive results. This exceptionally high success rate of 75 per cent could be achieved thanks to a thorough analysis of seismic data which helped us identify the most promising drilling sites,” explains Piotr Woźniak, adding that much of the drilling will be done on previously untapped geological formations. One such site is Kramarzówka where PGNiG completed horizontal drilling in unconventional Miocene formations - until now this has never been done in Poland. Once fracturing operation was completed, natural gas flows stabilised at 70,000 m³ per day, or 25 million m³ a year.

President of PGNiG SA added that in its future operations the Company will be also using state-of-the-art equipment such as drilling rig Bentec 2000 HP. It is the first new equipment for deep drilling bought by Grupa Kapitałowa PGNiG since 2012. It drills wells up to 7000 m deep and can relocate independently to a new site without the need for disassembly and assembly. The machine has drawwork capacity of 2000 HP and hook load capacity of 500 ton. Bentec 2000 HP will make its debut in Kramarzówka.