Countrywide optimization of natural gas supply chain: From wells to consumers

High-profit-margin gas plants are often challenged by low crude price and fluctuations in processed natural gas quality and quantities demanded by markets. A more challenging factor is the rapid variation in the demand of the products across gas supply chain. These challenges require high operational flexibility across the supply chain to adapt its product portfolio to the market-changes. To this end, optimization of the entire supply chain is highly essential to address these pressing challenges. This paper details an optimization analysis of a countrywide gas supply chain typical to the Middle East region. A unified optimization model that encompasses all the supply chain components is formulated. The model, in its most general form, comprises of 446 decision variables and 190 constraints, which is solved using an evolutionary algorithm. The key application of the proposed model is that it can be used in assessing the optimum allocation of the gas across the various layers of supply chain to maximize countrywide total profit. The model shows that an increase of 3% in profit can be achieved. The model is also used to predict future gas allocations under different scenarios based on fifteen-year profile of gas profiles, costs, product yields and contractual terms.