A decision-making tool to design a flexible liquefied natural gas system under uncertainty

We formulate an integrated design and evaluation mechanism applying techniques in the field of flexible engineering design and real options analysis to build a liquefied natural gas production and fueling system for a Singapore oil & gas company. The proposed methodology consists of four main steps: 1) design and evaluation under deterministic demand, 2) uncertainty characterization and performance re-evaluation under different uncertainty realization scenarios, 3) optimization under uncertainty, 4) post-optimality sensitivity analysis. Among the highlights of this work are applications of a metaheuristic method to more efficiently search for optimal flexible designs as well as extensive one-way and two-way sensitivity analyses to generate valuable insights. The final results show strong value in adding flexibility in this production and fueling system.