Modeling Petroleum Supply Chain: Multimodal Transportation, Disruptions and Mitigation Strategies
View/ Open
Abstract
The petroleum industry has one of the most complex supply chains in the world. A unique characteristic of Petroleum Supply Chain (PSC) is the high degree of uncertainty which propagates through the network. Therefore, it is necessary to develop quantitative models aiming at optimizing the network and managing logistics operations.
This work proposes a deterministic Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP) model for downstream PSC to determine the optimal distribution center (DC) locations, capacities, transportation modes, and transfer volumes. Three products are considered in this study: gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The model minimizes multi-echelon multi-product cost along the refineries, distribution centers, transportation modes and demand nodes. The relationship between strategic planning and multimodal transportation is further elucidated.
Furthermore, this work proposes a two stage Stochastic Mixed Integer Linear Program (SMILP) models with recourse for PSC under the risk of random disruptions, and a two stage Stochastic Linear Program (SLP) model with recourse under the risk of anticipated disruptions, namely hurricanes. Two separate types of mitigation strategies – proactive and reactive – are proposed in each model based on the type of disruption. The SMILP model determines optimal DC locations and capacities in the first stage and utilizes multimode transportation as the reactive mitigation strategy in the second stage to allocate transfer volumes. The SLP model uses proactive mitigation strategies in the first stage and employs multimode transportation as the reactive mitigation strategy. The goal of both stochastic models is to minimize the expected total supply chain costs under uncertainty.
The proposed models are tested with real data from two sections of the U.S. petroleum industry, PADD 3 and PADD 1, and transportation networks within Geographic Information System (GIS). It involves supply at the existing refineries, proposed DCs and demand nodes. GIS is used to analyze spatial data and to map refineries, DCs and demand nodes to visualize the process.
Sensitivity analysis is conducted to asses supply chain performance in response to changes in key parameters of proposed models to provide insights on PSC decisions, and to demonstrate the impact of key parameters on PSC decisions and total cost.