Multi-objective optimization of natural gas supply chain in shortage period

Natural gas consumption usually has the characteristics of seasonal fluctuations. Some countries have experienced gas shortages in recent years due to the imbalance between supply and demand, especially in winter or peak gas consumption periods. Under the conditions of a gas shortage, it is necessary to ensure the benefits of marketers and improve their satisfaction from users’ perspectives, so it is difficult to find the optimal purchase and sales strategy. Considering that different pipeline transportation pricing mechanisms and different gas distribution schemes have a great impact on the benefits of marketers, this paper proposes a multi-objective optimization model that maximizes the marketer’s benefits and minimizes the hypoxia index for different pipeline transportation mechanisms because of the supply-side gas shortage in the upstream gas source. The object-weighted method is used to process the multi-objective problem. The CPLEX solver is adopted to solve the optimization problem. Finally, the model is applied to a long-distance natural gas supply chain system to prove its applicability. After multi-objective optimization, under the two pipeline transport mechanisms, profits increased by 17.5% and 6.9%, respectively, and the hypoxia index decreased by 1.11 and 1.93, respectively, which greatly improved economic benefits and user satisfaction. Overall, the optimized scheme can maintain the stable operation of the natural gas supply chain and make up for the losses caused by the gas shortage.