Title: Offshore oil network design with transportation alternatives

Authors: Hadi Sahebi; Stefan Nickel

Addresses: Industrial Engineering Department, Iran University of Science and Technology, Naarmak, 16846-13114 Tehran, Iran; Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Operations Research, Kaiserstr. 12, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany ' Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Operations Research, Kaiserstr. 12, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany

Abstract: Petroleum industry plays a vital role in the modern global economy, owing to the fact that it is the largest source of energy in the world. Design and planning of the oilfield developments have become crucial concerns of the oil industry managers. In addition, crude oil transportation plays a critical role in the global supply chain of oil industry. In this work, we develop a model to design the oilfield development and plan crude oil transportation problems. A mixed integer model is proposed to extend the classical facility location-allocation problems by several features. Additionally, the model supports the selection of the transportation system and the planning of pipeline networks installations. This work ends with two sensitivity analyses. Two one-factor-at-a-time sensitivity analyses have been done with respect to the length of the planning horizon and the number of potential wells. [Received 30 March 2012; Revised 01 November 2012; Accepted 03 May 2013]

Keywords: offshore oil supply networks; strategic planning; tactical planning; facility location; logistics; mixed integer programming; network design; alternative transport; petroleum industry; oilfield development; crude oil transport; modelling; pipeline networks; pipeline installations; potential oil wells; oil supply chains; supply chain management; SCM.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIE.2014.066936

European Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2014 Vol.8 No.6, pp.739 - 761

Published online: 29 Jan 2015 *

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