05.07.2009

Sedimentary rock consisting of at least 50% calcium carbonate. The term limestone is applied to any sedimentary rock consisting essentially of carbonates. The 2 most important constituents are calcite and dolomite, but small amounts of iron-bearing carbonates might also occur. The oil reservoirs of the Middle East and North Africa contain some 70% of the world’s known oil reserves and about 50% of the world’s natural gas reserves. Most of these are contained in high-energy carbonate platform sediments, or in fractured limestones of large, doubly plunging anticlines

Libya, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), holds the largest proven oil reserves in Africa, followed by Nigeria and Algeria. Libya had total proven oil reserves of 41.5 billion barrels as of January 2007

LOGIC (Leading Oil and Gas Industry Competitiveness) was created in 1999 by the Government’s Oil and Gas Industry Task Force to improve competitiveness in the UKCS by targeting efficiencies in the supply chain

Import capacity is the maximum amount of natural gas that can be produced, transported, stored, distributed or utilized in any given period of time under design conditions

In this case the buyer of the LNG is responsible for arranging the shipping and the title to the cargo transfers on loading

Export capacity is the maximum amount of natural gas that can be produced, transported, stored, distributed or utilized in any given period of time under design conditions

Full LNG Chain includes upstream, liquefaction, shipping, re-gasification terminal.

Following exploration and production from onshore or offshore fields (stage 1) natural gas is transmitted by pipelines to the liquefaction facilities. There it has to be pre-treated; natural gas liquids and all components that would freeze under cryogenic temperatures (propane, butane, ethane, carbon dioxide, and water) have to be removed. Under atmospheric pressure using a cooling process the gas is cooled down to -161°C or – 259°F, thus becoming liquid and shrinking to about 1/600th of its original volume (stage 2). This liquefied natural gas is loaded into specially constructed vessels, containing complex cooling systems which are essential to keep the gas liquid. LNG is transported by ship to its destination country (stage 3); where through a heating process the gas is converted to its original state of aggregation in regasification plants (stage 4). At regasification utilities, storage tanks are used to enable a more continuous flow into the pipeline grid (vessels often only reach a specific destination about twice a month). Furthermore, these storage tanks can be used to cover peak demand. Finally, natural gas is fed into the national pipeline grid and sold (stage 5) to marketers, distributors or directly to power producers and large industrial consumers.

In some instances, LNG is transported in its liquid state by truck to single consumers (e.g. from the U.S. to Mexico) and even kept as LNG, or as small LNG facilities as storage for plants that are totally dependent on the need for gas.