Multistage stochastic capacity planning of partially upgraded bitumen production with hybrid solution method

摘要

Partial upgrading technologies have received a great amount of attention as a promising and economic solution for Canadian oil sands bitumen processing. In this paper, the optimal planning of capital and expansion capacities for partial upgrading of bitumen is studied. We propose a multistage stochastic planning model with consideration of various sources of uncertainties. The main challenge of the stochastic model is the presence of terms in which an uncertain parameter is multiplied by an adjustable dynamic decision variable. To solve the problem, two hybrid methods are proposed: in method 1, the uncertain parameter is modeled with an uncertainty set and the dynamic variable is modeled as scenario dependent variables; in method 2, the uncertain parameter is modeled with samples and the dynamic variable is modeled using the decision rule-based approximation. Finally, results obtained from both hybrid models are compared based on different criteria: (1) computational time, (2) solution performance, and (3) solutions for representative scenarios.