Alternatives to Transport Support in Exploration of Russia’s Arctic Shelf

Abstract

Using the problems of transport support of resource extraction in Russia’s Arctic shelf as an example, there is explained and implemented an approach to selecting an appropriate strategy to solve a semistructured problem under the uncertainty of the scenario. To structure the problem, a tree of objectives is drawn, scenarios and strategies are described. Scenarios indicate possible states of the environment where the problem is solved. Strategies differ in ways of transportation: mainly by sea (the Northern Sea Route) or Siberian rivers. It is shown that the construction of the Transpolar mainline is necessary for all the strategies. The authors have developed and implemented in software a method for collecting and processing expert data used to estimate numerically the importance of objectives. Following the same method, one evaluates the degrees of how the general objective of each strategy is achieved under each scenario included in the evaluation matrix. The appropriate strategy is selected according to the evaluation matrix with the help of strategic criteria (Laplace, Wald, Hurwitz and Savage)