Optimal Design of Star-Tree Oil-Gas Pipeline Network in Discrete Space

Abstract

Construction of oil-and-gas pipeline networks is an important topic in the field of oil and gas development. The rationality and economy of pipeline-network construction are becoming increasingly important. Generally, the investment required for constructing pipeline networks is more than 30% of the total investment required for the development of an oil-gas field. Therefore, based on the characteristics of pipeline networks, the design of oil-gas pipeline networks needs to be optimized to reduce the investment. In this study, considering the discrete characteristic of facility location in the pipeline network, a comprehensive and optimal mathematical model of the star-tree oil-gas pipeline network was established considering various constraints. From the standpoint of characteristics of the complex model comprising numerous discrete variables, a hierarchical-optimization strategy was presented to decompose the optimization problem into four subproblems. An optimization program was compiled. Furthermore, the developed optimization program was applied to a case study to demonstrate the optimization process of the subproblem well clustering. Finally, the optimization program helped in optimizing the pipeline-network layout of a practical project under the known or unknown station location conditions. The manual and optimal designs were compared. Consequently, the optimization model presented in this paper was proven to be an effective method to solve the optimization problem for the star-tree oil-gas pipeline network in a discrete space.