Transportation of natural gas is a very important aspect of the oil and gas industry and as such, it must be done with a much efficiency. Pipelines have been recognized as the most economic, effective and safest way of transporting natural gas. A lot of capital is needed, due to cost of pipeline, compressor stations and also in its maintenance. Therefore, in order to minimize cost, optimization of gas transportation process is necessary. In this study, optimization procedure of gas transportation network was developed using Successive Quadratic Programming algorithm, (SQP), in ASPEN PLUS software v8.8 using FORTRAN code. It determines the optimum economic diameter for which gas can be transported through series of pipelines. The model developed, which is, “tree branch type pattern” showed that the total cost of transporting gas depends on the amount of gas to be transported and also the outlet pressure required. The total cost is a function of the capital cost, operational cost, and diameter of the pipes. The capital cost increases with increase in diameter, whereas, the operational cost increases with decrease in diameter. The developed model can be extended to treat much larger and more complex network

Full text: IJEIR_2351_FINAL.pdf