The world demand of natural gas is rapidly growing due to many technical, economical, and environmental reasons. The fact that some of the natural gas is produced as a by-product (associated gas) of oil production may cause a country with a good oil and natural gas reserve to import natural gas to meet its current needs when its oil production is limited by technical and/or marketing constraints. This paper investigates designing a pipeline network for transporting natural gas among any combination of export and/or import points. The investigation is directed to finding the optimum route for such a network. The issues pertaining to the decision to have a pipeline network are discussed, and the technical factors that need to be considered when building a pipeline network are investigated. A computer software that determines the optimal gas pipeline network that connects any combination of cities and locations has been developed in this study. The program is capable of designing a pipeline network based on a criterion that accounts for the time independent parameters such as: type of fluid, transportation distances for each source or sink node, location of each source or sink node, elevation of each source or sink node, and topography along each distance (arc) and at each source or sink node (inland or offshore). It is expected that the software would be a generic tool that is not time dependent, and therefore will help in designing a pipeline network based on nodes (locations) that are provided by decision makers.
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