The oil majors are pulling out from shale gas projects in Europe because of disappointing gas well reserves and high drilling costs. In three up to five EU states which allowed commercial exploration, the majors have stopped drilling and dropped their projects. Since public opinion in Europe remains largely reserved, the European Commission is showing no hurry to propose EU legislation on fracking.

Poland was one of five European countries where the exploration of shale gas was expected to boom shortly.

Yet in July, the Polish Treasury Minister Andrzej Czerwinski said: “We need to be patient and it will be at least several more years before mining technologies will be developed.”

Facing more serious technical problems than expected and with no quick start of commercial exploitation being near, oil majors like Exxon, Marathon and Talisman withdrew and gave up their exploration projects in Poland.

In June, ConocoPhillips, a US energy company, withdrew from shale gas exploration in Poland as it has not encountered “commercial volumes of the gas”, the company said.

ConocoPhillips said it has invested around 200 million euros in Poland since 2009 and drilled seven wells.

The same disappointing story happened in Denmark, with the French company Total dropping its shale gas project in August since much less volumes than expected had been found.

Already in February this year, Chevron gave up its last European fracking project in Romania after having terminated agreements in Lithuania and in Ukraine before.

Estimations of the US Energy Information Administration saying that Romania could recover enough gas to cover domestic demand for years showed to be exaggerated.

According to Euranet Plus member Radio România, 16 of the 53 wells Chevron drilled were found to have no considerable quantities of oil or gas.

Prime Minister Viktor Ponta announced in April that “within the next five years, there will be no shale gas extraction in Romania.” But he did not say that Romania would completely give up fracking and underlined Romania needed to be as independent as possible from gas import, which means mainly Russian gas.

Meanwhile findings of natural gas in the Black Sea make it even less probable that shale gas will play a major role in Romania.

The end of fracking in Europe?

“There definitely is a slowing of exploration activities in Europe,” said Alessandro Torello, communications manager at the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP). admitting these are “difficult times” for shale gas companies to settle down in Europe.

“The situation of the oil market or gas market is obviously not encouraging for big investments for the time being and you see that in the everyday news. Especially for companies who have the possibilities of allocating investment worldwide. They go where they find the best opportunities, especially if the size of the investments is not huge because of the macroeconomic situation,” Torello said.

High drilling costs in Europe, due mainly to the bans of hydraulic fracturing in some EU countries or unfavourable tax regulations, are severely challenged by lower oil or gas prices coming from other region in the world.

The IOGP does not consider shale gas exploration coming to its end in Europe, though. “We still see potential,” Torello explained.

“Definitely Poland remains an interesting place, Romania is interesting, the UK definitely remains an interesting area,” Torello said. “Spain, we tend to forget Spain, but there is some interest in Spain and there are companies who are starting to explore in Spain. These are the main areas without forgetting Germany, where there is still some presence of the industry.”

More exploration is needed “to better understand the potential,” Torelli stressed. “We need to keep the door open for a regulatory framework and investment climate to make sure that if the situation changes, the companies can come back to Europe.”

Environmentalists ask for clear rules

Given the lower economical interest, the EU member states and institutions seem to be in a waiting position right now.

According to the answers given in a monitoring the European Commission published in September, so far only five EU countries (Denmark, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, UK) are granting authorizations for fracking or actually planning to do so, while six countries answered that they will “possibly” do so and 17 clearly answered No.

European countries are free to implement their own national rules for fracking, since no EU legislation is in place.

The European Commission in January 2014 published recommendations on “minimum principles for shale gas” to help those member states “wishing to use this practice address health and environmental risks and improve transparency for citizens.”

Friends of the Earth, together with other NGOs in different countries, analyzed the situation in the EU and concluded that the member states are not following the recommended rules.

“Our main observation is that this recommendation has not been implemented by one member state”, said Antoine Simon, a campaigner from Friends of the Earth. “No one has really tried to play the game, which is once again a reason for us to push the Commission to act and to take finally some binding legislative measures.”

When releasing the recommended rules, the Commission had announced to review their effectiveness “in 18 months”. But no report has been published so far.

According to a road map of the Commission, issued in August this year, the report is currently being compiled and the results will tell whether further action is needed. According to an EU source, the results could be published in the first quarter of 2016.

For Simon from Friends of the Earth there is evidence that countries like Poland, the UK or Germany, which are exploring shale gas and have put in place legislation for fracking, are not respecting the recommended rules.

“Not one member state has published, as asked in the recommendation, the list of the chemicals used during the process of shale exploration,” Simon added.

Plus, in the monitoring of the Commission, some countries were not telling the truth, Simon pointed out.

“The very first question is: Have you already granted some licenses for projects involving fracking? And you have examples of countries like France, Ireland or Sweden, which answered to that question: No. Which is a complete nonsense, because we know that France, Ireland and Sweden have already some licences for shale gas. For example, in the case of France, you still have 60 of these licenses which are still valid today,” Simon said.

Europeans divided on shale gas

Europeans remain skeptical towards fracking, the method making gas available from deep shale layers, which were inaccessible before.

A recent Eurobarometer survey published in September and carried out by the European Commission in 12 regions where shale gas projects have been permitted, showed that a majority of the inhabitants don’t see shale gas projects bringing new opportunities to their region and rather see new challenges raised by them.

UK public conflicted about Shale Gas fracking shows opinion survey https://t.co/9P4yn1dI00 #ClimateHour — #ClimateHour (@ClimateHour) October 19, 2015

A survey of Cardiff University also showed that in the UK, the country that was supposed to be the flagship for European shale gas, public opinion is ambivalent about shale gas, with a greater awareness of the risks than the benefits.

UK officials reject second Cuadrilla shale gas project in a week http://t.co/pSJAFCUuZ6 pic.twitter.com/U5iF94lKSN — Lidtime.com (@Lid_Time) September 15, 2015

In June, anti-fracking protesters celebrated when council leaders in Lancashire had blocked drilling plans from the shale gas explorer Cuadrilla.

David Cameron’s announcement of “going all out for shale” seems to have been slowed down. Scotland had already decided a moratorium in 2012.

Yet in other UK regions new licenses are being offered to companies by the government. In Yorkshire 2.700 square kilometers could be opened to fracking soon.

New scientific results not in favour of shale gas

Environmental concerns on exploring shale gas are not only about lowering the quality of drinking water or the long-term geological effects.

Shale gas advocates often underline the positive effect of shale gas on climate change due to lower CO2 emissions compared to other fuels involved in power production.

This argument is contradicted by the possible increase of methane emissions caused by fracking.

Since methane gas is known to trigger global warming even stronger than CO2, the positive effect could rather be more than neutralized, explained in 2013 Anthony Ingraffea from the Cornell University in Ithaca, located in the state of New York.

According to a study published in 2011 and 2014 by Robert Howarth from the same Cornell University, up to 7.9 percent of the methane from shale gas production escapes to the atmosphere in venting and leaks.

Howarth considers these methane emissions to be “at least 30 percent and perhaps more than twice as great” as those from conventional gas. Compared to coal, the scientists says, the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas is at least 20 percent greater.