Sustainable Strategic Planning for a National Natural Gas Energy System Accounting for Unconventional Sources

This work presents an optimization model for the strategic planning to satisfy the national demands of natural gas considering unconventional extraction such as shale gas and offshore extraction and conventional ways to produce associated and non-associated natural gas using enhanced gas recovery systems, as well as importation. The model incorporates a multi-objective optimization strategy to obtain trade-offs between economic, environmental and health issues. A case study from Mexico is presented to show the applicability of the proposed approach to satisfy the increasing national demand of natural gas through different extraction ways. Furthermore, in the presented study, economic, environmental and health factors were evaluated to select the best option. The economic factors consider costs associated with the production and treatment of natural gas, the used fresh water and the costs that involve the transportation of natural gas from its point of extraction to final markets. Regarding to the environmental impact, the fresh water consumption and CO2 emissions are considered. The occupational health of the involved processes in the production of natural gas is also evaluated, this because workers are continuously exposed to hazardous substances that can cause long-term damage. Results show that it is possible to decrease imports to satisfy the national demands for natural gas only with their own resources, and taking care for the economic, environmental and health issues.