Abstract
The production of gas and oil that plays an unconventional role in the world has affected the finances and the energy securities. The mineralogical characterization of shale rocks has a significant effect on the efficiency of shale gas, especially for drilling and production operations. This paper aims to study about the qualitative and semiquantitative minerals present in the shale samples of the Blue Nile and Dinder formations by using samples from two drilled wells. Twelve samples were analyzed in detail with the following mineralogical techniques: X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The XRD and SEM results show that the shale samples have clay minerals such as illite, kaolinite, and chlorite, as well as non-clay minerals such as quartz and pyrite. Other minerals compositions are feldspar, dolomite, and calcite. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) provides a high-resolution image of geometry, and EDS confirms the minerals that found in XRD. These types of minerals will be used to aid the exploration and development of shale gas, especially in the fractability.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS for the graduate assistantship of this research project under the “Graduate Assistantship Scheme,” and also thank Ministry of Petroleum in Sudan for providing the samples.
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Shoieb, M.A., Abidin, N.S.Z., Sum, C.W., Ibrahim, Y. (2017). Mineralogical and Petrographic Characterization: An Indication of Fractability of Shale Gas Reservoir in the Blue Nile Basin, Sudan. In: Awang, M., Negash, B., Md Akhir, N., Lubis, L., Md. Rafek, A. (eds) ICIPEG 2016. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3650-7_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3650-7_21
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