A hybrid multi-criteria decision-making approach to order natural gas consuming countries

Societies worldwide are committed to moving towards a low carbon economy, and natural gas is considered a transition fuel between fossil (such as gasoline and diesel) and renewable fuels. Based on the relevance of natural gas in this economic transition, this paper demonstrates the application of a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making approach to order the natural gas consuming countries. The aim is to support decision-making in the natural gas market, offering elements to prioritize the trade worldwide. The study observed three criteria: consumption variation for years 2014 to 2016; the volume of production in the same period; and proven natural gas reserves in 2016. The data to demonstrate the countries’ performance was obtained from a yearly statistic publication of the Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Biofuels (ANP), released in 2017. Finally, the decision-making methods adopted to assess the criteria were, first, the WINGS method, applied to generate the weights of each criterion. Second, the study adopted the TOPSIS method to pre-select the countries closest to becoming a global consumer of natural gas. After applying the TOPSIS method, a pre-analysis of dominance among alternatives (pre-selected countries) was conducted, excluding the dominated ones from the list obtained. Third, the PROMÉTHÉE II method was applied to establish the order of the natural gas-consuming countries.