Tank farm management - Scheduling of product movements

Abstract

In the chemical process industry and in particular in oil refining, there is an interest in optimizing the product movements throughout the tank farm. The problem is known as "tank farm management". Product movement and scheduling have a big economic impact on refinery operations. In this paper two subproblems have been studied. Within the basic one, the one level structure of parallel tanks is observed. Within the more complex case, two such basic structures in a series are considered. In solving both scheduling cases, the method of mathematical programming has been used.