Selection of the Best Efficient Method for Natural Gas Storage at High Capacities Using TOPSIS Method

Nowadays one of the most important energy sources is natural gas. By depletion of oil reservoirs in the world, natural gas will emerge as the future energy source for human life. One of the major concerns of gas suppliers is being able to supply this source of energy the entire year. This concern intensifies during more consuming seasons of the year when the demand for natural gas increases, resulting in a lot of problems such as pressure depletion in the pipelines. One of the most effective policies to prevent pressure depletion is gas storage in warm seasons of the year when public demand is low. In this paper three different methods of underground and surface gas storage at high capacities have been discussed which are as follows: depleted oil and gas reservoirs, liquefied gas storage, and gas hydrates storage. In this study, the NPV function for economical evaluation of these three natural gas storage methods was employed. Finally, after assessing the technical and economical aspects of these methods, the TOPSIS model was constructed and depleted oil and gas reservoirs storage selected as the best natural gas storage method at high capacities.