Abstract: As the scale of natural gas pipeline network is increased continuously and its operation conditions get more and more complicated, its central regulation and control shall meet more requirements.In this case, the problems involved in pipeline operation can be hardly solved comprehensively if dispatchers do the judging only based on their experience.Therefore, efficient optimization tools are in urgent need to assist the formulation of operation schemes and the regulation of daily conditions.In this paper, the application of optimization technology in the operation of natural gas pipeline network was described.Then, the corresponding optimization model was established and the solution method was developed with four cases as optimization objects, i.e., the hydraulic and thermal calculation checking of pipeline, the load distribution of compressor station, the reasonable optimization of single gas pipeline operation scheme, and the complex pipeline network operation scheme.It is pointed out that the optimization technology is an effective way to solve some practical production problems of natural gas pipeline network, but it is still necessary to strengthen the researches to break through the technical and application bottlenecks, e.g.the establishment of precise optimization model, the efficient solution of optimization model and the analysis and utilization of optimization result.Finally, the application prospect of optimization technology in transient optimization, control system optimization and even whole life cycle optimization was predicted.