Status of Unconventional Shale Gas Exploration in India

Boruah, Annapurna S.

The growing gap between natural gas consumption and supply has spurred interest in development of unconventional gas resources. India is having the immense prospects of unconventional shale gas resources. Commercial exploration of these shale gas resources can effectively make the global natural gas curve more elastic. It requires exhaustive investigations of all the shale rock properties of hydrocarbon bearing shale beds having significant organic matter and maturity. This paper presents the geological, geochemical, petrophysical properties of gas prospective shale plays of different sedimentary basins in India. It also attempts to discuss the sedimentology of shale rock, gas generation and retention mechanisms within the shale rock. Delineating the reservoir properties i.e. thermal maturity, reservoir thickness and geographic extent, total organic content, mineralogy, water saturation, fracture types, different shale gas prospective reservoir are identified. These parameters are showing variations in different shale gas systems and even within the same sedimentary basin shale rock properties are varying widely.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90163©2013AAPG 2013 Annual Convention and Exhibition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 19-22, 2013