A METHOD OF DATA MINING FOR SUSTAINABLE HYDROCARBON EXPLORATION

Abstract

Sustainability needs balance in ecology, economy and social justice. The world in this century is badly suffered by unsustainable development causing recession crisis, manpower crisis etc. Energy is vital for economy of a country so it has sound impact on sustainable development. In any country energy is exploredto meet consumption requirements and it is consumed in accordance with available reserves. In Pakistan, hydrocarbons are considered to be one of the major sources of energy. The contribution of hydrocarbon to overall development will be considered sustainable only if the hydrocarbon exploration rate will conform to its consumption rate. To ensure sustainable energy development, sustainability indicators had been agreed by world experts in a summit held in South Africa in 2001. These indicators will have different values for different countries depending upon the economy, energy reserves, living standards and social conditions. Depending upon these values, a methodology is proposed in this paper to find optimal hydrocarbon exploration rate that will ensure sustainable energy development in any country. The sustainability indicators (SI) are classified into exploration SI and consumption SI. The indicators which have strong correlation with hydrocarbon exploration rate are considered to be exploration SI while the indicators which have strong correlation with consumption rate are considered to be consumption SI. The correlation values are calculated by statistical correlation analysis. After finding exploration SI, multiple regression is used to predict optimal hydrocarbon exploration rate which will ensure sustainable energy development within the country.