Investment evaluation based on the commercial scope: The production of natural gas

The annual production planning of a natural gas trading and transporting company is modelled as a linear system of (in)equalities. The model is used to quantify the increase of robustness with respect to commercial uncertainty, resulting from investments in production capacities. A novel concept is the commercial scope, describing the set of future commercial scenarios that can be handled effectively. It is shown how relevant parts of the boundary of this set can be constructed using induced constraints. A numerical example is presented.