Optimal dynamic allocation of mobile plants to monetize associated or stranded natural gas, part II: Dealing with uncertainty

• Extended framework to address uncertainty in future supply, demand and prices.
• Explored three scenarios which differed in the future availability of resources.
• Obtained positive NPVs for all three scenarios.
• Analyzed the flexibility mobile plants possess to deal with uncertainty.

Using the Bakken shale play as a case study, the previous part of this two-part series demonstrated how small-scale mobile plants could be used to monetize associated or stranded gas effectively. Here, we address the issue of uncertainty in future supply, demand and price conditions. To this end, we modified our multi-period optimization framework to a stochastic programming framework to account for various scenarios with different parameter realizations in the future. The maximum ENPV (expected net present value) obtained was $2.01 billion, higher than the NPV obtained in the previous part. In addition, the value of the stochastic solution was 0.11% of the optimal ENPV, indicating that the flexible nature of mobile plants affords them a great advantage when dealing with uncertainty.