The inquiry comes in the week after the US Securities and Exchange Commission opened a similar procedure. If convicted, companies could face massive fines and see their current and future contracts with the new government declared null and void. According to the Wall Street Journal, the investigation “casts a cloud on the companies' ambitions to expand their foothold in the country with the largest oil reserves in Africa”.

ENI, in particular, was the biggest operator in Libya under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi and quickly recovered its lead after the regime change, with a current output share of about 14 per cent. The company was planning to invest over $30 billion (€22.9 billion) to double that figure over the next decade.

But there’s a problem with this, the Hamburg daily writes. On days of strong wind the north-south energy grid is saturated and the excess electricity is automatically shunted east, into Poland and the Czech Republic. The excess power, however, overloads those countries’ grids, which were designed for stable and continuous currents. Poland is therefore considering installing “phase shifters” at the border to turn back the electricity it does not need. If that were to happen the Germans would have to put some of their wind turbines on hold and, to fill the energy gap in the south, import nuclear energy from France.

The problem will get worse if the Czech Republic follows the example of Poland to protect its domestic grid, writes the FTD. For now, though, this small country, which is one of the major energy exporters to the rest of the EU, plans to invest 2.5 billion euros to upgrade its own network.

After last year’s assessments by US Energy Information Administration (EIA), which estimated Poland’s shale gas reserves at 5.3 trillion cubic metres, the news could dampen expectations that Poland could be independent of Russian gas imports for the next 300 years.

Rzeczpospolita warns that even though the maximum shale gas deposits in Poland may be still as high as 1.92 trillion cubic metres, the report may “curb the enthusiasm of Polish and international corporations to invest huge sums of money in prospecting licenses and test drilling”.

On a more positive note, the conservative daily observes that -

Although Poland may not become a leading global gas exporter, [the amounts of shale gas] that have been documented and determined as extractable would cover [the country’s] full demand for gas for a period of 35 to 65 years! A prospect hard to believe several years ago.

The ASN is not demanding an "immediate halt" to any of France's 58 reactors, but is requiring an "increase, as quickly as possible, in the sturdiness" of the installations when "faced with extreme conditions". "The goal is to better protect the reactors when faced with an exceptional 'accumulation of natural phenomena' or with a loss of electrical power or sources of coolant," Le Figaro explains.

The ASN has given the operator of Europe's largest nuclear fleet until June 30 to propose improvements in the fields of crisis management, communication, and of protection of sources of electrical power and water, adds French daily Le Monde. The ASN also calls for the creation of "a nuclear rapid action force," the paper says. This would consist, Le Monde explains, in "an emergency plan allowing teams and equipment to be sent to an accident site within 24 hours and which would be ready by 2014".

The cost of the work, estimated at €40 billion before the Fukushima catastrophe in March 2011, has been raised to €50 billion by Electricité de France (EDF) the French utility that operates the plants.

In its editorial, NRC urges the government to find "other ways to achieve the necessary energy diversification; obviously, if possible, in the context of a cooperative European venture.” The newspaper adds: “It is hard to imagine how diversification can be implemented in a manner that is good for the environment without nuclear power in the mix." Adding to Delta’s worries, 69 professors have signed an open letter against the power plant, which they claim is "unnecessary, costly, unprofitable and unsustainable."

The product of an industrial partnership between the Russian gas giant and major European energy companies (E.ON, BASF, GDF Suez, Gasunie), Nord Stream is nonetheless a highly political project, remarks the daily, which points out that “its route is an act of defiance towards Poland and the three Baltic States: passing under the Baltic is a snub to four EU member states”. Also present in the Euro-Russian South Stream consortium, which will skirt around Ukraine, Gazprom “has yet to get rid of its image as an armed wing of the Russian state”, adds Le Monde.

However, as Newsweek Polska points out, Russian Prime Minister “Vladimir Putin is wrong if he thinks he can dictate European politics by means of the pipe line running under the Baltic Sea”. It will rather be the West that – thanks to the Nord Stream – will gain influence over Kremlin policies. Why? Because German as well as Russian companies have one goal in mind: “the domination of the European gas market”. Gazprom’s plans are ambitious and far-reaching, it wants to conquer French and British markets as well as deliver gas to Austria and the Balkans via the planned South Stream pipeline. This, however, will make Russia more and more “dependent on cooperation with the European business” and more inclined, though reluctantly, to comply with EU regulations.

“Companies looking for unconventional gas pay professionals a fortune, employ lots of people and invest heavily in the equipment”, writes the Warsaw business daily. According to experts, each test drill requires a crew of up to 35 people which means that in order to drill a planned thousand test wells an anticipated 35,000 workers will be needed. Tens of thousands more will find jobs providing accommodation, food and analyses. Altogether, according to DGP, the “new branch of industry” will provide jobs for some 100,000 people with the best specialists earning up to 40,000 zlotys (10,000 euros) per month.

“Europe’s dependency on Gazprom grows”, worries GW, warning that by the end of the year Gazprom will start pumping gas through Nord Stream pipeline to Germany and may soon seal its “gas monopoly” in Central Europe with the construction of the South Stream  pipeline. "Where is the big surprise?", wonders Die Presse. "For the time being, every alternative is too expensive. Climate policy forces to shut down coal power stations and the Fukushima disaster tempered the 'nuclear renaissance'".

Handelsblatt, on the contrary, thinks Germany’s position in the race for the “treasure of the Libyan oil” is under threat. For the German economic daily, Turkey, which has proposed $300 million in aid for the rebels, is “the winner of this stage.” Italy, “which built the well heads in Libya,” is well positioned, but Nicolas Sarkozy “will not accept” that France should make way for Italian companies. German industry won’t have an easy catch-up in this race, Handelsblatt continues, for by failing to back the rebels the German government has “spoiled the start”.