A fuzzy opportunity and threat aggregation approach in multicriteria decision analysis

Economic expansion in developed countries coupled with dramatically growing economies in countries such as China and India have precipitated a steady increase in demand for oil and natural gas. The Caspian Sea region holds large quantities of both oil and natural gas. Because the Caspian Sea is landlocked and the region’s nations are distant from the largest energy markets, transportation must at least begin by pipeline. While some lines currently exist, pipelines with the capacity of transporting larger amounts of energy resources must be constructed to meet the global demand. This study is conducted for a multinational oil and natural gas producer to develop a multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework for evaluating five possible pipeline routes in the Caspian Sea region. The proposed MCDA model considers a large number of conflicting criteria in the evaluation process and captures decision makers’ (DMs’) beliefs through a series of intuitive and analytical methods such as the analytic network process and fuzzy scoring. A defuzzification method is used to obtain crisp values from the subjective judgments and estimates provided by multiple DMs. These crisp values are aggregated and synthesized with the concept of entropy and the theory of the displaced ideal. The alternative routes are plotted on a diagram in a polar coordinate system and a classification scheme is used along with the Euclidean distance to measure which alternative is closer to the ideal route.