Investigation of Shale Gas Reserves in The World and A Case Study for Electricity Production from Shale Gas in Turkey

Shale gas reserves, which is globally accepted as unconventional gas resource, scattered around the world and can be used in order to meet the growing energy needs due to limited amounts of conventional resources. Since notable effort has to be put in order to investigate and drill shale gas resources the early decision has to be made carefully, especially considering the economic benefits. Several factors must be considered including the known technically recoverable shale gas amount at the selected region, current technology to drill the shale source and the amount of investment before the extraction of shale gas. In this study, global underground shale gas amount and recent discoveries as well as the potential shale gas areas in Turkey are presented. Benefits of using shale gas for electricity generation and common methods being used during shale gas extraction are studied along with gas and liquid flow mechanisms. At the end, general overview of separation and utilization of shale gas components is schematically presented. In the case study, the potential of electricity generation in the SE Anatolia region in Turkey is estimated with only using methane obtained from the shale gas purification process at the power generation step. According to the estimations, 3337.8 MW electric power may be generated for 50~55 years, at the appropriate gas engine by using 8.5 billion cubic meter shale gas annually.