MULTIPLE CRITERIA DECISION MAKING ANALYSIS OF THE PORT OF ŠVENTOJI DEVELOPMENT

Port of Šventoji is a maritime facility in the settlement of Šventoji, located within the country Lithuania, near the seaside resort town of Palanga. In this paper five Port of Šventoji development alternatives are overviewed using a multi-criteria decisionmaking (MCDM) method. The results will be compared with the ones found in “Port of Šventoji reconstruction feasibility study” (liet. Šventosios jūrų uosto atstatymo galimybių studija). Criteria weights of the analysed alternatives are determined using the entropy method. Alternative analysis is carried out using the TOPSIS multicriteria method.

Anthropological Perspectives on Fair Trade

Fair trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency, and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers. Minimum prices and social premiums linked to fair trade certifications, which require independent audit of the environmental, economic, and social conditions of commodity production and exchange, are integral to the system. Anthropological explorations of fair trade practices emphasize the cultural dimensions, socio-economic conditions, and political economy. Anthropological scholarship explores how experiences of fair trade are diversely influenced by gender; racial and ethnic identities; differences in wealth and resources, education, and geographic location; and political hierarchies and social institutions. The nuanced insights into fair trade impact produced through detailed, ethnographically driven anthropological research ultimately illustrate the limits of social movement-driven, rural-development alternatives and produce empirically informed, practical suggestions for how the current system could be improved. Anthropological expertise is appreciated within the fair trade assemblage, which encompasses development organizations, certification firms, importers, and retailers.

Caveats and Pitfalls of Production Forecast Uncertainty Analysis Using Design of Experiments

Design of Experiments (DoE) is one of the most commonly employed techniques in the petroleum industry for Assisted History Matching (AHM) and uncertainty analysis of reservoir production forecasts. Although conceptually straightforward, DoE is often misused by practitioners because many of its statistical and modeling principles are not carefully followed. Our earlier paper (Li et al. 2019) detailed the best practices in DoE-based AHM for brownfields. However, to our best knowledge, there is a lack of studies that summarize the common caveats and pitfalls in DoE-based production forecast uncertainty analysis for greenfields and history-matched brownfields. Our objective here is to summarize these caveats and pitfalls to help practitioners apply the correct principles for DoE-based production forecast uncertainty analysis. Over 60 common pitfalls in all stages of a DoE workflow are summarized. Special attention is paid to the following critical project transitions: (1) the transition from static earth modeling to dynamic reservoir simulation; (2) from AHM to production forecast; and (3) from analyzing subsurface uncertainties to analyzing field-development alternatives. Most pitfalls can be avoided by consistently following the statistical and modeling principles. Some pitfalls, however, can trap experienced engineers. For example, mistakes made in handling the three abovementioned transitions can yield strongly unreliable proxy and sensitivity analysis. For the representative examples we study, they can lead to having a proxy R2 of less than 0.2 versus larger than 0.9 if done correctly. Two improved experimental designs are created to resolve this challenge. Besides the technical pitfalls that are avoidable via robust statistical workflows, we also highlight the often more severe non-technical pitfalls that cannot be evaluated by measures like R2. Thoughts are shared on how they can be avoided, especially during project framing and the three critical transition scenarios.

Integrated Field Management System for LNG Assets: Maximizing Asset Value Through Representative End-To-End Modeling

Effective asset-level decision-making relies on a sound understanding of the complex sub-components of the hydrocarbon production system, their interactions, along with an overarching evaluation of the asset's economic performance under different operational strategies. This is especially true for the LNG upstream production system, from the reservoir to the LNG export facility, due to the complex constraints imposed by the gas processing and liquefaction plant. The evolution of the production characteristics over the asset lifetime poses a challenge to the continued and efficient operation of the LNG facility. To ensure a competitive landed LNG cost for the customer, the economics of the production system must be optimized, particularly the liquefaction costs which form the bulk of the operating expenditure of the LNG supply chain. Forecasting and optimizing the production of natural gas liquids helps improve the asset economics. The risks due to demand uncertainty must also be assessed when comparing development alternatives. This paper describes the application of a comprehensive field management framework that can create an integrated virtual asset by coupling reservoir, wells, network, facilities, and economics models and provides an advisory system for efficient asset management. In continuation of previously published work (Khan, Ali, Elfeel, Biniwale, & Dandekar, 2020), this paper focuses on the integration of a steady-state process simulation model that provides high-fidelity thermo-physical property prediction to represent the gas treatment and LNG plant operation. This is accomplished through the Python-enabled extensibility and generic capability of the field management system. This is demonstrated on a complex LNG asset that is fed by sour gas of varying compositions from multiple reservoirs. An asset wide economics model is also incorporated in the integrated model to assess the economic performance and viability of competing strategies. The impact of changes to the wells and production network system on LNG plant operation is analyzed along with the long-term evolution of the inlet stream specifications. The end-to-end integration enables component tracking throughout the flowing system over time which is useful for contractual and environmental compliance. Integrated economics captures costs at all levels and enables the comparison of development alternatives. Flexible integration of the dedicated domain models reveals interactions that can be otherwise overlooked. The ability of the integrated field management system to allow the modeling of the sub-systems at the ‘right’ level of fidelity makes the solution versatile and adaptable. In addition, the integration of economics enables the maximization of total asset value by improving decision making.

Education, entrepreneurship and the environment

The trend of the state is to promote the creation of companies in general, which help the development of self-employment of graduates. Universities are training professionals with less dynamic production techniques in the agricultural sector, development and the needs of the population are increasing, which requires innovation in the production of healthy, profitable foods with less impact on natural resources. Professionals with business training must be developed in a manner that will allow them to generate their own jobs, look for technological alternatives that help improve the production of healthier and organic foods, and use products of natural origin that are replacing the pesticides and drugs that are reflected in the final products for the consumer. Among the development alternatives, you can venture into business projects that seek to improve the production and development of organic products, and inputs with added value made through natural processes. It can be mentioned that there is knowledge of organic agriculture, and the trainers at the University have technical knowledge based on previous and current research. However, there is little information on the certification of agricultural activities for the volumes that are required in the country.

Early-Phase Offshore Hydrocarbon Field Planning Considering Environmental Factors and Using Integrated Asset Modeling

This work discusses methods to quantify environmental indicators of development alternatives during the early design phase of offshore fields and how to include them in the selection process. The goal is to develop a decision-support method to: 1) evaluate field development alternatives of reduced environmental impact and 2) dealing with conflicting indicators such as economic value and environmental performance. A value chain model of a synthetic field located in the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) was created using an integrated asset modeling tool. The model computes the net present value (NPV) of the project and the amount of CO2 emissions based on the hydrocarbon production profile and the field energy consumption. Several cases and field development power supply alternatives such as open-cycle gas turbine (OCGT), combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT), power from shore and offshore wind farms are analyzed. It has been assumed that the gas turbine generates most of the CO2 and that the amounts of CO2 produced is a function of the field power consumption. The effect of the CO2 tax is included and studied. Results show that there are development alternatives that provide fair economic value while having low CO2 emissions. For the cases studied, the solutions with gas turbines have higher economic value than the solutions with power from shore and offshore wind farms, but emit large amounts of CO2. For solutions using gas turbine, a combined-cycle has less CO2 emission intensity (kgCO2/boe) than open-cycle, however, the energy intensity (kWh/boe) depended mainly on the amount of gas recycled and is highest for 75%. These indicators could allow field planners to evaluate and compare different field development concepts. Breakeven values of CO2 tax were determined for which the economic value of development with the gas turbine is equal to that of development with power from shore or offshore wind farms.

Rural development in the Sertão do São Francisco, Bahia: an interpretation based on the trajectories of peasant families of the territory

This article addresses the trajectories of peasant families of the rural areas in the municipalities of Juazeiro, Casa Nova, Campo Alegre de Lourdes, and Remanso development, in the Sertão do São Francisco territory, semiarid Bahia, Brazil. It aims to interpret the processes of rural development in the territory based on the results of innovations incorporated by families from the interaction in learning networks mobilized by non-governmental organizations and access to a set of public policies. The Lume method was used to guide the economic and ecological analysis of agroecosystems. In its recent history, this territory was the beneficiary of several policies of tackling misery and hunger through Zero Hunger (Fome Zero) and Brazil without Extreme Poverty (Brasil sem Miséria) governmental programs, aimed at peasant farming. The incidence of extensive territorial development policies conducted by innovative institutionalities is another feature that called the attention of the research. A significant ensemble of innovations has been incorporated to the agroecosystems, to which contributed the public policies of the democratic period and, most importantly, the social capital of the territory resulted from the mobilization of the peasantry as well as from their partner organizations. The trajectories of analyzed families show how food production for self-consumption of the families, the reciprocity of give-and-take actions and the trading in a big diversity of local markets, while empowering the families’ struggle for autonomy, also contributes to summon social active strength for the construction of rural development alternatives aimed at both making peasant farming stronger and ensuring food sovereignty of the territory.