Oil Products Distribution Systems: Decomposition Approach on Pipeline and Inventory Scheduling

摘要

This paper addresses the problem of oil products scheduling in a system where the supply is provided by a pipeline and a tank farm that enables storage and market fulfillment. Multiproduct pipelines are complex equipments where the operational time window between product load to pipeline until product shipment for customers is wide, requiring longer scheduling horizons. However, problem complexity rises significantly with the time horizon extent and if the problem is approached through an exact optimization method such as mathematical programming the effort to obtain a solution is considerably high. This problem motivates the approach proposed within this paper consisting of an integrated framework that aims problem complexity reduction and lower computational effort. The approach combines two continuous time MILP models with different levels of detail with an iterative procedure that exchanges information between both levels. The approach is exemplified using a real world scenario of a Portuguese company that transports and distributes six oil products.