POTENTIALITY OF SHALE GAS IN GHADAMIS BASIN AS FUTURE ENERGY RESOURCE, LIBYA

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