Abstract:
In the first ten years of the atheist and the twentieth century has seen signs of a qualitative
change in the field of global energy sources, where there are signs of a relative change in the
global favorite sources for energy. However, shale gas is the emergence of the global gas market strategies, including associated characteristics as market supply and demand, costs
and prices.
It is clear that global discoveries of shale gas reserves will re-formulate the geopolitical map
of the energy, and will be one of the main sources in the future. After studies and research in
many countries U.S. Federal Agency estimates for the Energy Information that shale gas
resources could increase recoverable gas by more than 40%, as well as this suggests the
possibility of the transformation of many gas-importing countries to producer countries, and
some countries may become gas exporter in the future. All these facts pave the way for a new
phase become the shale gas wealth that may lead to significant changes in the path of gas
trade in the next decade, which may affect the markets and the prices of international oil and
gas.
On the other hand, shale gas exploration and production facing many challenges such as
technical applications, environmental impacts and scares of water for hydraulic fracturing
and that don’t comply with the international regulations.
The reserves estimated by EIA indicate that the technically recoverable reserve (TRR) of
shale gas in Ghadamis basin ranging from 80-120 tcf. While the ARI study estimated that for
Libya the gas-in-place is 1,147 tcf, while the recoverable reserves are 290 tcf. The latter is
more than five times longer than the country's proven conventional reserves. Of the gas-in place, 57 tcf are in the Ghadamis basin and 1,090 tcf in the Sirte basin.
The main objective of this study is to highlight on the assessment of shale gas discovered in
Ghadamis basin in Libya using SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity and threat) analysis
matrix, and comparing evaluation parameters such as basin area, pay thickness, depth, total
organic hydrocarbon, and technically recoverable reserve with other basins in the world, as
shale gas a new source of energy
