June 10, 2011, Greencastle, Ind. — Oksana Polhuy, who will be a sophomore at DePauw University in the fall, contributes a column to the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper. Polhuy lives in Chernihiv, a city in northern Ukraine.
"With the price of Russian natural gas set to skyrocket from around $300
per 1,000 cubic meters to $400 or more by the end of this year, the
need to explore Ukraine’s shale gas resources with the help of foreign
companies is becoming more and more urgent," she writes. "Ukraine, according to different estimates, has two to 30 trillion cubic
meters of shale gas -- a type of natural gas trapped in rocks beneath
the earth’s surface. If Ukraine did have 30 trillion cubic meters of
the shale gas, it would be enough to satisfy the demand for gas in
Ukraine for 600 years. International oil and gas majors Chevron, Shell, Exxon Mobil and TNK-BP
have shown interest in exploring shale gas in western Ukraine and coal
bed methane in Donetsk Oblast using hydraulic fracturing -- or
hydrofracking -- a controversial technology that has helped 
the U.S.
become a world leader. However, the technology raises serious environmental concerns,
including pollution of water sources, such as rivers and underground aquifers."
Polhuy states that it is imperative that Ukrainian officials learn "from the U.S. experience with hydrofracking and (pass) certain regulations to prevent environmental problems."