Long touted as a new European El Dorado in the shale gas sector, Poland is seeing its prospects for large-scale commercial exploitation come crashing down. On 5 June, the multinational ConocoPhillips announced the withdrawal from its three concessions, considered the most promising in the country. "Unfortunately, commercial volumes of natural gas were not encountered," the company explains in a statement. Since 2009, it has invested US$220 million in Poland and used the most advanced extraction technologies in its exploration.
ConocoPhillips…