Polskie Górnictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo (PGNiG) has launched a new crude oil mine. The company announced the commencement of exploitation of the Kamień Mały oil and gas field in the Lubuskie voivodship.

The Kamień Mały deposit is located in the communes of Słońsk and Górzyca in the north-western part of the Lubuskie Province. Its documented reserves are approx. 0.7 million tonnes of crude oil with natural gas in the amount of approx. 130 million cubic meters. Investments related to the development of the deposit included connecting the drilled boreholes, construction of a pipeline and an installation for pumping the formation water.

The installation on the Kamień Mały deposit creates the so-called group center with four connected wells, including three production ones. The extracted crude oil and natural gas are transported through a hermetic pipeline to the Górzyca Group Center, approx. 18 km away.

There, the two raw materials are separated. Next, the crude oil is transported by tank trucks to the Barnówko railway expedition. Natural gas, on the other hand, is sent via a pipeline to the Zielin mine installation, from where it is ready for sale after receiving commercial parameters.

Currently, PGNiG manages 52 crude oil and natural gas production plants in Poland. Most of them, 34 facilities operate in south-eastern Poland. The borderland of Małopolska and Podkarpacie is the cradle of the oil industry – the oldest mine in the world in Bóbrka, launched in 1854, is still operating there.

Currently, most of the domestic crude oil production takes place in the territory of the Zachodniopomorskie, Lubuskie and Wielkopolskie voivodships. The two largest mines of this raw material operate here – Dębno and Lubiatów. Last year, the total output in both of these installations amounted to approx. 480 thousand tonnes of crude oil, which accounts for 3/4 of the entire domestic crude oil production by PGNiG. Its volume in 2021 exceeded 640 thousand tonnes.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński