Title: Decision making for produced water management: an integrated multi-criteria approach

Authors: Abdullah Mofarrah; Tahir Husain; Kelly Hawboldt

Addresses: Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Memorial University, St. John's, NL, A1B 3X5, Canada. ' Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Memorial University, St. John's, NL, A1B 3X5, Canada. ' Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Memorial University, St. John's, NL, A1B 3X5, Canada

Abstract: Developments of effective produced water (PW) management strategies pose a challenge to the offshore petroleum industry. In this study three PW minimisation systems: down hole oil-water separation (A₁), chemical water shut off (A₂) and mechanical water shut-off (A₃) were evaluated based on fourteen pre-selected criteria from environment, cost and technical point of view. Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was integrated with Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) algorithm to solve the decision matrix. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to determine the sensitivity of the evaluation results.

Keywords: produced water management; MCDM; multicriteria decision making; fuzzy AHP; TOPSIS; analytical hierarchy process; sensitivity analysis; offshore petroleum industry; offshore oil industry; oil-water separation; chemical water shut off; mechanical water shut-off.

DOI: 10.1504/IJETM.2013.050674

International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management, 2013 Vol.16 No.1/2, pp.102 - 128

Accepted: 29 Jan 2011
Published online: 17 Sep 2014 *

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