Robust planning of blending activities at refineries

• Published in: The Journal of the Operational Research Society Vol. 64; no. 6; pp. 848 - 863
• Main Authors: Bengtsson, J, Bredström, D, Flisberg, P, Rönnqvist, M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Taylor & Francis 01.06.2013; Palgrave Macmillan; Palgrave Macmillan UK; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Business and Management; Capital costs; Case studies; Crackers; Crude oil; Decision making; decision support system; Determinism; Finished goods; General Paper; General Papers; Integrated approach; Inventory; Inventory management; Logistics; Management; Modeling; Naphtha; oil; Operations research; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Optimization; Oracles; Petroleum refineries; planning; production; Production planning; risk; Robust optimization; Scheduling; Studies; Vacuum distillation; planning; risk; oil; optimization; production; decision support system

Refinery operation planning is a complex task since refinery processes and inventories are tightly interconnected. We study refinery planning when ships are loaded with a blend of components and where arrival times of ships are uncertain. Any delay in ship arrival may result in overfull component ta...