Last week the excitement surrounding the rush for shale gas in Poland was tempered with some unwelcome news. Seven people were charged with offering or receiving bribes in the allocation of concessions to look for the gas in 2011.

The environment ministry handed out the last of 109 exploration concessions in the second half of last year, most of them to foreign firms or their Polish subsidiaries. The prices, at around €100 per square kilometre, were trivial.

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