Maritime crude oil transportation – A split pickup and split delivery problem

Abstract

The maritime oil tanker routing and scheduling problem is known to the literature since before 1950. In the presented problem, oil tankers transport crude oil from supply points to demand locations around the globe. The objective is to find ship routes, load sizes, as well as port arrival and departure times, in a way that minimizes transportation costs. We introduce a path flow model where paths are ship routes. Continuous variables distribute the cargo between the different routes. Multiple products are transported by a heterogeneous fleet of tankers. Pickup and delivery requirements are not paired to cargos beforehand and arbitrary split of amounts is allowed. Small realistic test instances can be solved with route pregeneration for this model. The results indicate possible simplifications and stimulate further research.

A two-phase approach for real-world train unit scheduling

“…Alternatively, it is possible to perform a pre-generation beforehand trying to extract the essence of all possible candidates into a size-reduced pot, and then carry on subsequent column generation process only based on this pot. Examples of this type include (Kwan and Kwan (2007)) for large-scale crew scheduling and Hennig et al (2012) for maritime transport routing. If a dynamic-generation approach is used, theoretically the solution will be guaranteed to converge to a global optimum.…”

Abordagens de otimização para um problema de roteirização e programação de navios petroleiros

“…Rocha et al (2009) dealt with a related allocation problem of oil in the context of a Brazilian oil company, which in addition to the product allocation plans, determines boarding plans for oil tankers from platforms to terminals, in a more aggregate level (tactical), without detailed considerations of the routing and scheduling of ships. Hennig et al (2012) studied a routing problem in oil maritime transport with load splitting, which employed a specific procedure for pre-generating routes. The work of Christiansen et al (2013) offered a survey for ship routing and scheduling.…”

“…As mentioned, no papers were found in the literature that presented models and solution methods for addressing the present operational problem of ship routing and scheduling applied to oil cabotage with the characteristics of the practical operation here considered, as described in the next section. Bibliographic review of models of inventory routing problem type integrated with inventory management, with emphasis on practical aspects of industrial applications for marine and land modes Hoff et al (2010) Continuation of the work of Andersson et al (2010), with a focus on studies that integrate routing problems with fleet composition Hennig et al (2012) pickup and delivery problem with split loads…”

“…Thus, the oil sector requires versatile operations from the refineries that are receiving oil to be processed and this, in turn, unfolds in large volume and more rigid deadline requirements for logistics (Christiansen et al, 2007;Hennig et al, 2012).…”

Ship Routing with Pickup and Delivery for a Maritime Oil Transportation System: MIP Model and Heuristics

“…Therefore, oil companies are seeking higher levels of agility and efficiency in their decision-making processes, as well as developing strategies to better organize their activities for enhanced economic outcomes, especially those activities related to transportation operations of commodities [3][4][5]. Within this context, the oil sector requires versatile operations from the refineries that are receiving oil to be processed, and this, in turn, is reflected in larger volumes and tight deadline requirements with which logistics are to comply [6,7].…”