The algorithm for forecasting and gas compression cost optimization during underground gas storage exploitation

At present, all underground gas storage facilities are equipped with gas compression stations. The gas compression station allows to increase the UGS active volume and use storage in a wider range of pressure. Increase of the storage services cost is the main disadvantage of this solution. In order to minimize the gas compression costs, a UGS operation program, appropriately developed for the installed gas compression system, should be used. The article presents an algorithm for determining optimal exploitation of underground gas storage due to the minimal cost of gas compression. The optimization method was developed for the gas production phase during the winter season. During the withdrawal season gas is delivered to the transmission system by using a compression station. An analytical model of gas withdrawn from a UGS combined with a model of gas delivered by a compression station to the gas pipeline system was applied. Cost of the compression fuel used during the withdrawal season is the target function. The aim of the analyzed function is to minimize the cost of the compression fuel during the withdrawal and injection season. For illustration of the developed algorithm, the results of calculations of the optimization solution for the sample UGS are included. The calculations were made using Ms Excel spreadsheets equipped with an implemented optimization algorithm.