Evaluation of the Construction and Investment Process of a High-Pressure Gas Pipeline with Use of the Trenchless Method and Open Excavation Method. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

The study presents the application of multi-criteria analysis, i.e., the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), for the evaluation of investments related to the realisation of a high-pressure gas pipeline. The authors evaluated the realisation of the gas pipeline with the use of alternative methods: the trenchless Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) method and the open excavation method, based on the example of the construction of a high-pressure gas pipeline DN1000. Sections located in naturally valuable areas on the route of the pipeline Wierzchowice-Kiełczów (Poland) were analysed, on the section from the valve station in Czeszów to the Kiełczów node. The research considered the following criteria: technical costs, economic costs, social costs, and environmental costs. The sum of these partial estimations is the “total cost” of the investment. Research revealed that the technical costs of the open excavation method are in all cases higher than the technological costs of the trenchless method during the realisation of a gas pipeline (in the AHP analysis, they receive an average score of −4 or −3, compared to a score of −2 for the HDD method). On the other hand, the economic costs are comparable, with a slight advantage for the HDD method. The overall score for the open excavation method obtained with use of the AHP multi-criteria evaluation is, for different variants, approximately −19, while the evaluation of the realisation of a gas pipeline with use of the Horizontal Directional Drilling method gives a score from −15 to −10, depending on the section.