TNK-BP is considering unconventional gas opportunities in eastern Europe, as hard-to-extract deposits start to “make sense” with available technology and pricing conditions.

“That’s a game changer,” chief operating officer Bill Schrader said in an interview. “It will have an impact globally. As economic activity recovers, that gas will be developed.”

TNK-BP is looking at former Soviet republics “where we can bring technology that we have, or even BP has, in exploiting tight gas,” Schrader said. Ukraine and other eastern European countries are possible areas, and the company is assessing the geological potential, he said.

BP said in November that it plans to produce the world’s first coal-bed methane for liquefaction with Italy’s Eni. In 2008, the British oil producer bought shale assets in Arkansas from Chesapeake for $1.9 billion and assets in Oklahoma for $1.75 billion.

Record prices for gas pushed the United States to tap unconventional sources of the fuel, Schrader said. U.S. success in extracting gas from shale, or rock formations, has spurred interest in Europe, which may compete with liquefied natural gas, or LNG, and pipeline supplies.

TNK-BP’s gas output is mostly a byproduct of crude oil production, as its gas developments in Russia are restrained by access to Gazprom’s pipeline network.

Gas makes up about 12 percent of TNK-BP’s total production, Schrader said in the interview late Friday on a flight to Moscow from Nizhnevartovsk, the western Siberian region that accounts for about 51 percent of the company’s crude output.

“We would like to do more gas,” Schrader said. “We would like to do it even outside Russia where the technology and the experience we have actually make strategic sense.”

Potential gas projects will depend on the cost of access, operating environment and available connection to customers, according to Schrader. While investors seek to develop cheaper resources first, it is important to look at the economics of delivering the fuel to the market, he said.

European shale could be sufficient to displace the equivalent of about 20 million tons a year of LNG by 2015 and about 60 million tons a year of capacity by 2020, JPMorgan Chase said in a report.

TNK-BP plans to produce about 11.6 billion cubic meters of gas this year. Of that, only 2.7 billion cubic meters will be produced at its Rospan International gas unit. TNK-BP could pump 3.2 billion cubic meters this year while the potential is estimated at as much as five times higher, Schrader said.

“The cost curve on gas is very interesting,” Schrader said. “It goes from very inexpensive, delivered in terms of costs to producer, up to something quite high for LNG that moves around the world. If you can break into that curve somewhere, you are in the business.”