Conventional Natural Gas Project Investment and Decision Making under Multiple Uncertainties

Abstract

Similar to many energy projects, the evaluation of investments in natural gas projects is influenced by technical and economic uncertainties. These uncertainties include natural resource characteristics, production, decline laws, prices, taxes, benchmark yield, and so on. In China, conventional natural gas is still the dominant energy source. The investors are mainly large state-owned energy companies. Therefore, it is necessary to include the technical and economic uncertainties, as well as the investment decision and optimization problems of the enterprises in a unified analytical framework. To this end, this paper innovatively constructs such a framework. Using numerical simulations of approaches, the process of investment decision optimization by companies based on technology assessment and price forecasting is visualized in detail. The results suggest that the investment decision of the enterprise needs to consider technical and economic uncertainties in an integrated manner. It also needs to combine the business strategy and social responsibility of the enterprise in order to construct the objective function. With the availability of data, the framework and its algorithms can be used for practical evaluation of investment plans and decision supports for conventional natural gas projects. The framework can also integrate the analytical perspective of the macroeconomic and political environment to bring in a more comprehensive range of uncertainties.