Journal of Cleaner Production 166 (2017) 49e57

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Energy efciency optimization in scheduling crude oil operations of

renery based on linear programming
NaiQi Wu a, ZhiWu Li a, *, Ting Qu b
a
Institute of Systems Engineering, Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macau
b
School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Jinan University (Zhuhai Campus), Zhuhai 519070, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: For sustainable development, a renery is required to save energy as much as possible so as to reduce the
Received 13 September 2016 emission of greenhouse gas. In crude oil operations, oil transportation from storage tanks to charging
Received in revised form tanks via a pipeline consumes a large portion of energy. It is vitally important to minimize energy
10 March 2017
consumption for this process. Since the oil ow resistance is proportional to the square of oil ow rate,
Accepted 29 July 2017
Available online 31 July 2017
the relation between energy efciency and ow rate is nonlinear, which makes the problem complicated.
This work addresses this important issue by formulating a linear programming model for the considered
problem such that it can be efciently solved. A real-world industrial case study is used to demonstrate
Keywords:
Oil renery
the applications and signicance of the proposed method.
Crude oil operations 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Scheduling
Energy efciency

1. Introduction Meanwhile, at the lower layer, advanced process control techniques

Facing with global and increasingly intensive market competi-
tion, great attention is paid to the scheduling operations and con-
trol of discrete manufacturing systems (Bai et al., 2016; Chen et al.,
2017a; 2017b; Qiao et al., 2015; and Wu and Zhou, 2012a, 2012b,
and Wu et al., 2013) to name a few of studies made in recent years.
Also, a plant in the process industry has to be well operated such
that it is competitive. It is known that, with advanced information
technology applied to modify the operations, a process plant can be
made more protable (Moro, 2003). During the last two decades,
extensive attention from both academia and industry community
has been paid to the optimization of the operations in reneries, a
type of most important process industries. A renery can be
operated in a hierarchical way with three layers: production
planning, short-term scheduling, and unit control at the upper,
middle, and lower layers, respectively. With linear programming-
based commercial software tools, such as PIMS (Process Industry
Modeling System) (Aspen Technology Inc, 1999) and RPMS (Re-
nery and Petrochemical Modeling System) (Bonner and Moore,
1979), an optimal plan can be efciently found at the upper layer.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: nqwu@must.edu.mo (N. Wu), zhwli@xidian.edu.cn (Z. Li),
quting@jnu.edu.cn (T. Qu).
are widely realized for unit control in reneries, resulting in sig-
nicant productivity improvement. However, thanks to the lack of
efcient techniques and software tools for short-term scheduling at
the middle layer, the three layers cannot be integrated such that a
global optimum cannot be achieved and a short-term schedule has
to be obtained manually by a planner. Hence, extensive efforts have
been made for developing effective and efcient techniques for
scheduling of reneries.
Since the operations in a renery contains a discrete-event
process, its short-term scheduling problem is essentially combi-
natorial and NP-hard (Floudas and Lin, 2004). Moreover, to obtain
such a schedule, one needs to dene activities to be performed and
sequence them simultaneously, leading to the fact that the widely
used heuristics and meta-heuristics cannot be applied since these
methods require that the jobs to be scheduled should be known in
advance. Hence, mathematical programming models are adopted
to formulate the scheduling problem of a renery with two cate-
gories, namely discrete and continuous-time representations.
By discrete-time representation, the scheduling horizon is dis-
cretized into a number of uniform slots such that the scheduling
problem can be formulated as a mixed integer linear programming
(MILP) model (Shah, 1996; Lee et al., 1996; Pinto et al., 2000;
Glismann and Gruhn, 2001; Jia et al., 2003; Rejowski and Pinto,
2003; Saharidisa et al., 2009; Mendez et al., 2006; and Yuzgee
et al., 2010). To make a schedule obtained by such a model

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.07.222
0959-6526/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
50 N. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 166 (2017) 49e57
practically applicable, the time duration for the time slots should be
short enough, leading to a huge number of discrete variables for a
practical application problem. Hence, it is almost impossible to be
solved by the existing software tools such as the famous CPLEX and
LINGO (Floudas and Lin, 2004; and Wu et al., 2011).
To make the problem computationally tractable and solvable,
models with continuous time-representation are developed such
that the time points for the start and end of an event can be exactly
found (Jia et al., 2003; Jia and Ierapetritou, 2004; Karuppiah et al.,
2008; Li et al., 2002, 2012; Mouret et al., 2009, 2011; and Shah
et al., 2009). By such a model, it is indeed that the number of
discrete variables can be signicantly reduced. Especially, by the
priority-slot-based modeling method presented by Mouret et al.
(2009, 2011), the problem size can be signicant reduced. Never-
theless, it pays an expense of introducing non-linear constraints,
resulting in a mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP)
model. It is well-known that an MINLP problem is very difcult to
solve. Furthermore, in order to build such a model, one needs to
decide the number of operations to be performed in advance,
which is unrealistic for practical applications in general (Floudas
and Lin, 2004).
In addition to different modeling methods, efforts have been
made to improve computational efciency by developing solution
methods. For example, event-based methods (Yuzgee et al., 2010;
and Furman et al., 2007), an outer-approximation algorithm (Jia
et al., 2003), and a decomposition algorithm (Shah et al., 2009) to
improve the efciency of solving such a problem. Indeed, the
aforementioned solution methods can reduce the computation
requirements to some extent. However, all these methods belong to
enumeration in nature. With the NP-hard nature of the problem,
they cannot resolve the computational complexity problem for
real-life applications. To avoid solving an MINLP problem, based on
the model obtained by the priority-slot-based modeling method, a
two-stage algorithm is proposed to solve the MINLP problem
(Mouret et al., 2009, 2011). At Stage 1, an MILP model is formed by
removing all the non-linear constraints from the MINLP model. This
MILP problem is then solved to obtain a solution for the integer
variables. Generally the solution obtained from solving the MILP is
not feasible for the original MINLP, since the non-linear constraints
are removed. Then, at Stage 2, the solution for the integer variables
obtained at Stage 1 is substituted into the original MINLP to obtain a
non-linear programming (NLP) model without an integer variable.
Then, the NLP is solved to obtain a schedule. However, a solution
may not be found for the NLP problem even if a feasible schedule
exists for the original MINLP problem.
Thus, to make the problem formulated by mathematical pro-
gramming models solvable, in modeling, some constraints are
ignored, which, unfortunately, results in an inefcient or unrealistic
schedule for real-life scenarios (Mendez et al., 2006). This means
that there is a gap between academic research and applications. As
the best knowledge of the authors, up to now, there is no software
tool of short-term scheduling of oil reneries for practical use.
To bridge such a gap, the key is to develop a computationally
efcient approach for a good solution other than an exactly optimal
solution. Notice that, with a large number of discrete variables, the
solution space is very large. On the other hand, with a large number
of constraints for the problem, the feasible solution space must be
small. Thus, it is extremely difcult to solve such a problem by any
enumeration method. With this observation, a Petri net-based
control-theoretic approach for crude oil operations is proposed
(Wu et al., 2008a, 2009, 2015). By this approach, the dynamic
behavior of the process is modeled with a hybrid Petri net model by
treating the plant as a hybrid system with the interaction of
discrete-event and continuous processes (Wu et al., 2007; 2008b).
From the viewpoint of control theory, schedulability is analyzed
to establish schedulability conditions for different scenarios (Wu
et al., 2011, 2008a, 2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2016a; and Zhang et al.,
2017). These conditions determine the feasible space, i.e., the
feasibility conditions, such that the problem can be decomposed
into two sub-problems: rening scheduling and detailed sched-
uling. With the schedulability conditions as constraints, the
rening scheduling problem can be solved to obtain a realizable
and optimal rening schedule by using linear programming-based
methods (Wu et al., 2012; 2016b). Then, given a realizable and
optimal rening schedule, a detailed schedule to realize it can be
found in a recursive way (Wu et al., 2011, 2008a, 2009, 2010a,
2010b, 2016a). Furthermore, with the schedulability conditions,
genetic algorithm can be used to nd an optimal detailed schedule
(Hou et al., 2017). Accordingly, a short-term schedule for crude oil
operations can be efciently found although it may not be globally
optimal.
It should be pointed out that all the aforementioned studies
mainly focus on searching for techniques to cope with computa-
tional complexity while some objectives are optimized without
taking sustainability into account. With continuous climate change
resulting from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, there is a
great concern on energy saving for sustainable development. It is
well-known that process industries are characterized by high en-
ergy consumption. It is vitally important to minimize energy con-
sumption in operating a renery such that greenhouse gas
emissions can be reduced as much as possible. A renery process is
very complex and energy-intensive, and signicant energy can be
saved if it is well-operated in the sense of energy efciency. Thus, it
is very important to reduce energy consumption in the sense of cost
reduction and sustainable development. This work focuses on the
energy saving issue in scheduling the process of crude oil
operations.
In the existing studies on scheduling crude oil operations, a
variety of objectives are optimized. They include: 1) minimizing
cost resulting from crude oil inventory, oil tanker waiting, and oil
unloading (Lee et al., 1996; Jia et al., 2003; and Jia and Ierapetritou,
2004); 2) maximizing productivity (Pinto et al., 2000; and Wu et al.,
2012, 2016b) and minimizing the number of tanks used (Pinto et al.,
2000; Zhang et al., 2017); 3) minimizing the number of oil type
switches in oil transportation via a pipeline (Lee et al., 1996; Hou
et al., 2017); 4) minimizing the remaining oil in a tank when it is
unloaded (Shah, 1996); and 5) maximizing the processing effec-
tiveness of different oil types processed by different distillers (Wu
et al., 2012; 2016b). However, as far as the authors know, there is
no research report on how to save energy in scheduling crude oil
operations, which is crucial to our society. This motivates us to
conduct this study.
As pointed out in (Wu et al., 2005), in crude oil operations, crude
oil transportation from storage tanks to charging tanks via a
pipeline consumes a large portion of energy. In order to save energy
in the process of crude oil operations, it is signicant to minimize
the energy consumption for oil transportation. The aim of this work
is two folds: 1) to develop a method to minimize the energy con-
sumption in oil transportation from storage tanks to charging
tanks, and 2) the proposed method should be computationally
efcient such that it is practically applicable.
Generally, in a renery, crude oil is transported from storage
tanks to charging tanks via a pipeline. When delivering liquid
material through a pipeline, the ow resistance in a pipeline is
proportional to the square of uid velocity, i.e., is highly non-linear
as pointed out by Cafaro et al. (2015). Hence, the transportation rate
of the pipeline is not proportional to the power applied, in other
words, the energy consumption is non-linear with respect to the oil
ow rate. This makes the problem of optimizing the energy ef-
ciency in oil transportation very complicated. Thus, a
 N. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 166 (2017) 49e57
computationally efcient method for optimizing energy con-
sumption in oil transportation should avoid non-linearity and at
the same time obtain satisfactory performance.
For a long-distance pipeline, at each pumping station, there are
a number of sets of machines for pumping the oil. In practice, the oil
ow rate is regulated by changing the number of sets of machines
that are in operation. Based on such an operation mode, this work
tackles the energy efciency issue and a linear programming-based
approach is proposed to minimize the energy consumption in
crude oil operations. It is done as follows: a short-term schedule is
found with the maximal ow rate of the pipeline to maximize the
productivity without taking energy efciency into account. This
problem can be efciently solved by the Petri net-based theoretic-
control approach proposed in (Wu et al., 2008a, 2009, 2012, 2016b).
Based on the obtained schedule, this work minimizes the energy
consumption for oil transportation via a pipeline. A linear
programming-based technique is developed to solve it. By doing so,
non-linearity is avoided and it is computationally very efcient.
The remainder of this work is organized as follows. Next section
briey introduces the process of crude oil operations and its short-
term scheduling problem. Section 3 states the energy optimization
problem in crude oil operations and presents the linear program-
ming formulation for it. A real-world industrial case study is given
to demonstrate the application and signicance of the proposed
method in Section 4. Section 5 concludes the work.
2. The process and its short-term schedule
Before presenting the problem discussed in this work and the
method for it, we briey introduce the processes of a renery. An
illustrative view of general/typical oil renery processes can be
depicted in Fig. 1. A renery contains a number of storage tanks
located at a port near the plant, a pipeline, a number of charging
tanks in the plant, a number of distillers for oil distillation, and a
variety of other production units. In the viewpoint of operations,
there are two phases: 1) crude oil operations and 2) production.
Crude oil arrives at the port through oil tankers by sea. It is then
unloaded into storage tanks. From the storage tanks, oil is delivered
to charging tanks through the pipeline. Charging tanks are used to
feed oil to the distillers for distillation. This process forms the rst
phase, called crude oil operations. The products obtained from
distillation are further processed by other production units to
obtain various components. These components are blended to form
the nal products, which is the production phase. A short-term
scheduling problem for the process of crude oil operations is well
recognized as being the most difcult one in a renery. That an-
swers why we nd no implementable theory and software tools to
enable industrial-size applications.
Crude oil operations
Charging Distillers production
Tanker Storage Pipeline
tanks
Fig. 1. The illustrative view of a general oil renery.
51
To meet the market demands, a renery should process a
number of crude oil types with different components. Each distiller
can process some crude oil types, but not all, which in turn requires
a tank (storage or charging tank) to hold one oil type at any time.
Before oil can be processed by a distiller, brine must be separated
from oil. To do so, it requires that, after lling a storage or charging
tank, crude oil must stay in it for some time before it can be dis-
charged. This is called an oil residency time constraint. Besides, any
tank cannot be charged and discharged simultaneously. There is
another requirement that a distiller must work continuously and
cannot be stopped unless there is a planned maintenance. The
above requirements pose a large number of constraints on the
process of crude oil operations.
To schedule the process of crude oil operations is to decide the
tasks to be performed and sequence them. A task is a discrete event
for the process. In the execution of a task, oil is delivered in a
continuous way, resulting in a hybrid system with both discrete-
event and continuous processes. When a task is executed, the
system is transformed from a state to another such that a task can
be seen as a control command. Thus, the scheduling problem of
crude oil operations is to determine the commands (tasks) and can
be studied from a perspective of hybrid system control as done by
Wu et al. (2011, 2008a, 2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2016a, 2012, and 2016b;
and Zhang et al., (2017). By the control-theoretic-based approach, a
task is dened as follows.
Denition 2.1. A task (TS) is dened as TS {OT, SP, DP, V, a, b},
where OT denotes an oil type; SP the source from which the oil comes,
DP the device to which the oil is delivered; V the amount of oil to be
processed; and a and b the start and end time points for a task.
For easy implementation and simplicity for nding a schedule,
the oil ow rate in a task is set to be a constant, i.e., f V/(b -a). In
crude oil operations, there are three types of TSs: UTSs for oil
unloading from a tanker to storage tanks, DTSs for oil delivering
from storage tanks to charging tanks, and FTSs for oil feeding from
charging tanks to distillers. With the denition of TSs, a short-term
schedule SCHD for crude oil operations can be described as
SCHD {UTS1, UTS2, , UTSw, DTS1, DTS2, , DTSx, FTS1, FTS2, ,
FTSk} (2.1)
Thus, the scheduling problem of crude oil operations is to nd
an SCHD such that all the aforementioned requirements and con-
straints are met, while some objectives are optimized. With the
maximal oil ow rate of a pipeline, such a schedule can be ef-
ciently found by the control-theoretic-based approach to optimize
productivity and oil type processing effectiveness (Wu et al., 2008a,
2009, 2012, and 2016b). A schedule for a scenario from a renery
Production
Other
Blend Finished
tanks units header products
52 N. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 166 (2017) 49e57
Fig. 2. The Gantt chart for distiller feeding schedule.
A1 A2 A3 A4
#1 #1 #7
TK #2 TK #3 TK #5
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Fig. 3. The Gantt chart for oil transportation schedule via a pipeline.
obtained by using this approach is shown in Figs. 2 and 3, where DSi
represents Distiller i. In Fig. 2, the distiller feeding schedule is given
by presenting the case when a charging tank is used to feed a type
of oil into a distiller. For example, during time interval (0, T1),
Charging Tank #1 is used to feed Oil Type #1 into Distiller 1. While,
in Fig. 3, an oil transportation schedule from storage tanks to
charging tanks is given by presenting the case when a type of oil is
charged into a charging tank. For instance, during time (0, A1), Oil
Type #1 is charged into Charging Tank #2.
To make a schedule feasible, a charging tank can feed a distiller
only when the oil in the charging tank is ready for feeding. For
example, the charging of Oil Type #1 into TK #3 ends at A2 as shown
in Fig. 3 such that it can be ready at T2 when TK #3 starts to feed DS1
as shown in Fig. 2. Note that, for the schedule shown in Figs. 2 and 3,
TK #1 is used to feed Oil Type #1 into DS1 at time zero, which
means that Oil Type #1 should be charged into TK #1 before time
zero, i.e., it is done during the last scheduling horizon.
By observing the schedule shown in Fig. 3, during time (A2, A3),
the pipeline is stopped and no oil is transported. Note that, in
transporting oil via the pipeline, the oil ow resistance is propor-
tional to the square of the oil velocity and is highly non-linear to the
velocity (Cafaro et al., 2015). This implies that the higher the oil
ow rate in the pipeline is, the more energy is consumed. Thus,
when there is idle time for the pipeline, one may reduce the oil ow
rate to save energy if the obtained schedule is still feasible. Also, the
transportation of some oil parcels can be delayed by reducing the
oil ow rate without affecting the distiller feeding schedule. In this
way, energy consumption can be further reduced. This problem is
coped with in the next section.
3. Problem formulation and solution method
As aforementioned, to nd a schedule for crude oil operations is
to decide a series of TSs and, by the control-theoretic-based
approach, the oil delivering rate for each TS is set to be a con-
stant. Since the scheduling problem of crude oil operations is
A5 A6 A7 A8
#5 #4 #7 #2 #4
TK #8 TK #1 TK #9 TK #2 TK #6
80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180
Time(H)
extremely complicated, it is difcult to efciently nd such a
schedule by optimizing productivity and energy consumption
simultaneously. However, with the maximal oil transportation rate
via a pipeline, a schedule to maximize the productivity can be
efciently found. Based on such a schedule, this section discusses
how to optimize energy consumption by regulating the oil trans-
portation rate in the obtained DTSs.
3.1. Problem statement
Given a schedule with the maximal oil transportation rate for
DTSs, to minimize energy consumption, we examine whether some
parcels of oil in the DTSs can be delayed without impact on the
feasibility of the schedule. If so, we can delay the transportation of
some parcels by reducing the transportation rate.
A pipeline system in a renery used to transport crude oil from
storage tanks to charging tanks can be illustrated by Fig. 4. It is
composed of a pipeline and a number of pumping stations that
provide the power for the oil transportation. There are a number of
sets of machines at each pumping station. The power provided by
the system is dependent on the number of sets of machines that are
in operation at each station. In such a system, given the number of
sets of machines in operation at each station, the oil transportation
rate can be regulated in a range. Since the relation between the
pumping power and oil rate is highly non-linear (Cafaro et al., 2015)
and the range that can be regulated is generally small. In practice,
when the oil transportation rate needs to be increased, one puts
more sets of machines in operation at each pumping station. In fact,
the oil transportation rate is not proportional to the number of sets
of working machines either and is highly non-linear instead. Take a
renery as an example. When one set of machines is used at each
pumping station, the transportation rate of the pipeline is 20,000
tons per day. When two sets of machines are used, the rate is
30,000 tons per day. If three sets are used, it is 33,000 tons per day
only.
Note that the scheduling of crude oil operations is a routine job.
 N. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 166 (2017) 49e57 53

Storage tanks
Pipeline Charging tanks

Pumping Pumping Pumping

station 1 station 2 station 3

Fig. 4. Illustration of a pipeline system.

To make a method for the routine scheduling problem applicable to 3.2. A linear programming-based method
complex and practical application problems, it must be simple and
computationally efcient. With high non-linearity, it is extremely Given a short-term schedule for crude oil operations obtained
difcult to optimize the energy consumption if the domain of oil by the control-theoretic-based approach, assume that there are k
transportation rate is in a real number space. Thus, to search for an DTSs, each of which is performed to charge a charging tank. With a
efcient method for the scheduling problem of crude oil opera- single pipeline, these DTSs are sequenced such that DTS i1 should
tions, one must avoid the non-linearity. To do so, it is reasonable to be performed just after DTS i. Notice that if DTS i1 is scheduled to
adopt the operational mode used in the practice, which regulates be performed immediately after DTS i is performed, then when DTS i
the oil transportation rate by changing the number of sets of ma- is delayed, DTS i1 must be delayed too. However, if there is an
chines at each station. Also, given the number of sets of machines to interruption for the pipeline between performing DTSs i and i1, a
be operated at each station, there is a most energy-efcient oil delay of performing DTS i does not necessarily result in a delay of
transportation rate. Thus, it is justied that, given the number of performing DTS i1. Thus, to present the method, the DTSs are
sets of machines to be operated, the most energy-efcient oil grouped.
transportation rate is applied. Based on this analysis, we present a The DTSs obtained by the control-theoretic-based approach are
simple and computationally efcient method to minimize the en- divided into d groups such that, in group Gi, there are ki DTSs with
ergy consumption in scheduling crude oil operations as follows. k1 k2 kd k. We use DTSij to denote the j-th DTS in group
Based on the above analysis, to minimize energy consumption is Gi, and Aij and Bij to denote the time points when DTSij starts to
to decide the oil transportation rate for each DTS. Since the number charge a charging tank and ends the charging, respectively. Note
of sets of machines at each station is limited and known, there are that Aij and Bij are given by the schedule obtained by the control-
only a limited number of selections on oil transportation rate for theoretic-based approach, i.e., they are known. Then, with this
the amount oil for each DTS. To do so, we assume that there are n grouping, we have Bij Ai(j1), i.e., in the same group, the DTSs are
selections. Then, given a DTS {OT, SP, DP, V, a, b}, we divide V into n performed one after another without interruption. However,
parcels V1, V2, , and Vn such that each parcel is delivered with Bi(ki) < A(i1)1 must hold. In other words, between groups Gi and
different rate as shown in Fig. 5. Nevertheless, the feasibility needs G(i1), the pipeline is schedule to be idle for some time. Since the
to be guaranteed, i.e., when a charging tank is scheduled to be schedule obtained by the control-theoretic-based approach is
charged, it must be emptied, and when the oil in a charging tank is known, given i, whether Bi(ki) < A(i1)1 holds or not is known too.
scheduled to be fed into a distiller, the oil residency time constraint This implies that the number of groups is known, i.e., d is a decided
must be satised. Specically, for the schedule given in Figs. 2 and parameter. Based on this grouping of DTSs, we present the
3, by regulating the oil transportation rate of DTSs, Charging Tank following notations to formulate the considered problem.
#5 can be charged only after time point T4 and its charging should Parameters and sets.
be ended U time units earlier than time point T8 when Tank #5 that
holds Oil Type #7 is used to feed DS3, where U is the oil residency n: the number of sets of machines usable at each pumping
time. station;
In summary, to minimize energy consumption for oil trans- S {1, 2, , n}: the set of the number of sets of machines;
portation via a pipeline, for each DTS {OT, SP, DP, V, a, b}, one d: the number of groups of DTSs;
needs to optimally divide V into n parcels V1, V2, , and Vn such that G {1, 2, , d};
they are transported with ow rate levels 1, 2, , and n, respec- Nki {1, 2, , ki};
tively. A linear programming-based method can be developed to DTSij: the j-th DTS in Group i2G and j2Nki that is decided by a
achieve this purpose. given schedule;
Gi {DTSi1, DTSi2, , DTSi(ki)};
Vij: the amount of oil to be transported by performing DTSij;
TKij: the charging tank to be charged by performing DTSij that is
Flow
Flow rate
rate decided in the given schedule;
C11 DTS
DTS 11
level
level 11 Aij: the time point when TKij starts to be charged by performing
DTSij as given by the schedule;
C12
C
C21
21 Bij: the time point when charging TKij ends as given by the
Flow
Flow rate
rate schedule;
C22 DTS
DTS 22
level
level 22 Tij: the time point when TKij charged by performing DTSij begins
C1k
C
C2k
2k to feed a distiller as given by the schedule;
Cn2 U: the oil residency time;
C
Cn1 fi: the most energy-effective oil transportation ow rate when i
n1
sets of machines are used at each pumping station;
Flow
Flow rate
rate Cnk DTS
DTS kk Ci: the cost coefcient when i sets of machines are used at each
level
level nn pumping station;

Fig. 5. Optimization of energy consumption by regulating the ow rate of DTSs.

54 N. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 166 (2017) 49e57

Decision variables. caused by regulating the oil transportation is in a permissive range

xijh: the amount of oil in DTSij to be transported by using the
most energy-efcient ow rate with h sets of machines being
used at each pumping station, i2G, j2 Nki, and h2S;
ti1: the time point when TKi1 starts to be charged by performing
DTSi1 after oil transportation rate is regulated.
Given a schedule obtained by the control-theoretic-based
approach, the above listed sets and parameters are known except
Ci. To formulate the addressed problem, one needs to determine Ci.
With high non-linearity, the higher the oil transportation rate is,
the more power is consumed by transporting one unit of crude oil,
i.e., Ci > Ci-1 holds. For the linear programming problem presented
below, if we set Cd > Ch with d s h, by solving the following linear
programming problem, higher priority must be given to the oper-
ation mode that uses h sets of machines than the one that uses
d sets of machines. Thus, to optimize the problem addressed in this
paper, we need only set Ci > Ci-1 regardless of the actual values of
Ci's. Let 4 denote the nominal power in KWs when one set of ma-
chines is in operation at each station. Then, with i sets of machines
are in operation, the power is i4 in KWs, and the energy consumed
for delivering one ton of oil is i4/fi in KWhours. However, in
solving an optimization problem, we can obtain the same result no
matter we set Ci to be i4/fi or i/fi. Thus, it is reasonable to let Ci i/fi
such that we have Ci > Ci-1. Then, we formulate the problem as
follows.
X X X
Minimize J Ch xijh
i2G j2Nki h2S
Subject to
t11  A11
X types of oil should be processed by the renery. The distance from
x1jh V1j ; j2Nk1
h2S
. is 375 tons, 230 tons, and 500 tons per hour, respectively. For the
Xj X
t11 g1
x1gh fh U  T1j ; j2Nk1
h2S
ti1  Ai1, i2G\{1}
X X . respectively.
ti1  ti11 xi1jh fh ; i2G\f1g
j2Nki1 h2S
X
xi jh Vij ; i2G\f1g; j2Nki ;
h2S
Xj X .
ti1 g1
xigh fh U  Tij ; j2Nki ; i2G\f1g
h2S
xijh  0 and ti1  0
Since Ch represents the energy consumed for transporting one
unit of crude oil, by Objective (3.1), the total energy consumption is
minimized by regulating oil transportation rate. Constraint (3.2)
guarantees that oil transportation can be done when a charging
tank is available as specied by the given schedule. Constraint (3.3)
states the conservativeness property of crude oil in a DTS.
Constraint (3.4) guarantees that the time when the oil in the
charged charging tank is ready is earlier than Tij when the charging
tank is used to feed a distiller, i.e., it guarantees that the time delay
such that the oil residency time constraint is satised. Constraint
(3.9) presents the non-negative requirement.
As above discussed, between two Groups G(i-1) and Gi, there is an
idle time, or we have Ai1 > B(i-1)(k(i-1)). However, after delaying the
transportation of oil of DTSs in G(i-1), this may no longer hold. Since
a pipeline cannot be used to perform two DTSs simultaneously, a
DTS in Gi can be performed only after all the DTSs in G(i-1) have been
executed. Constraints (3.5) and (3.6) state that when a DTS in Gi is
performed, the pipeline is available, and at the same time, charging
tank TKi1 that is necessary for performing DTSi1 is released. Con-
straints (3.7) and (3.8) have the same meaning as that of (3.3) and
(3.4).
Notice that the domain of xijh's and ti1's is real number, and the
objective and constraints are linear. Hence, this is a linear pro-
gramming formulation and can be efciently solved by commercial
software tools. Notice that a frequent switch from transporting one
type of oil to another via a pipeline is very costly and the number of
such switches should be minimized in scheduling crude oil oper-
ations. The number of DTSs for an obtained schedule is not large in
general. Consequently, the proposed linear programming formu-
lation cannot be large. Thus, the proposed method is simple and
computationally efcient. In this way, the proposed method mini-
mize energy consumption and at the same time it is practically
applicable due to its computational efciency.
4. Industrial case study
(3.1) This section uses a real-life scenario from a renery in southern
China to show the application of the proposed method. The renery
is located at the southern China and is one of the largest reneries
in China. It has three distillers and a long-distance pipeline for
delivering oil from storage tanks to charging tanks. These distillers
(3.2)
are designed for processing different types of oil such that multiple
(3.3) the storage tanks to charging tanks is more than 20 km, so is the
pipeline. The maximal oil processing capacity of the three distillers
(3.4) pipeline, there are three sets of machines at each pumping station.
If one set, two sets, and three sets of machines are put into oper-
ation, the corresponding most energy-efcient oil transportation
rate via the pipeline is 20,000 tons, 30,000 tons, and 33,000 tons
(3.5)
per day (or 833.333 tons, 1250 tons, and 1375 tons per hour),
(3.6) As a routine, the renery needs to present a short-term schedule
every 10 days. The case presented here is one of the scenarios and a
schedule is found by the control-theoretic-based method (Wu et al.,
(3.7) 2008a, 2009, and 2012). For this case problem, since the total oil
processing capacity is 375 230 500 1105 tons per hour that is
less than 1250 tons per hour by using two sets of machines at each
pumping station, we can treat 1250 tons per hour as the maximal
(3.8) oil transportation rate via the pipeline for scheduling the process. In
other words, there are two oil transportation modes: 1) one set of
machines at each station is in operation and 2) two sets of machines
(3.9) at each station are in operation with f1 20,000/24 833.333 tons
per hour and f2 30,000/24 1250 tons per hour, respectively. In
this way, with the initial state of the charging tanks shown in
Table 4.1, the obtained schedule is shown in Figs. 6 and 7.
For the obtained schedule by the control-theoretic-based
method, there are nine DTSs and they form two groups with
G1 {DTS11, DTS12, DTS13, DTS14} and G2 {DTS21, DTS22, DTS23, DTS24,
DTS25}. For this schedule, Charging Tanks #129 with Oil #3, #128
with Oil #2, and #116 with Oil #4 have been already charged during
the last scheduling horizon such that they can be used to feed DS1,
DS2, and DS3 at time zero, respectively. For example, 34000 tons of
 N. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 166 (2017) 49e57 55

Table 4.1
The initial state of the charging tanks.

Tank Capacity (Ton) Type of oil lled Volume (Ton) Distiller feeding

Tank #129 34,000 Crude oil #3 27,000 Distiller 1

Tank #128 34,000 Crude oil #2 30,000 Distiller 2
Tank #116 34,000 Crude oil #4 27,000 Distiller 3
Tank #117 34,000 Crude oil #5 30,000
Tank #115 34,000 Crude oil #5 25,000
Tank #127 34,000
Tank #182 20,000
Tank #180 20,000
Tank #181 20,000

Fig. 6. The distiller feeding schedule for the case problem.

A11 A12 A13 A14 B14 A21 A22 A23 A24 A25
#2 #2 #1 #1 #6 #6 #1 #2 #3
#180 #181 #127 #182 #116 #117 #129 #128 #127

Time (H)
0
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200

Fig. 7. The oil transportation schedule for the case problem.

oil #2 in tank #128 are fed into Distiller 2 rst. At the same time, Subject to
40,000 tons of oil #2 are transported into tanks #180 and #181.
Then, 21,200 tons of oil #2 are fed into Distiller 2 and 18,800 tons of t11  0
oil #2 in tank #181 are left for the use of the next scheduling ho-
rizon. It should also be noticed that, among the DTSs, the oil x111 x112 20000
transported to Charging Tanks #128 and #127 by performing DTS24,
DTS25 is not processed during the current scheduling horizon but t11 x111/833.333 x112/1250 6  130.4
for the next horizon and the time when it is processed is unknown.
Hence, we do not need to consider these two DTSs for energy x121 x122 20000
reduction.
From the given schedule, by using ST to stand for storage tanks, t11 x111/833.333 x112/1250 x121/833.333 x122/
we have DTS11 {#2, ST, #180, 20000, 0, 16}, DTS12 {#2, ST, #181, 1250 6  217.4
20000, 16, 32}, DTS13 {#1, ST, #127, 34000, 32, 59.2}, DTS14 {#1,
ST, #182, 20000, 59.2, 75.2}, DTS21 {#6, ST, #116, 34000, 92.8, 120}, x131 x132 34000
DTS22 {#6, ST, #117, 34000, 120, 147.2}, DTS23 {#1, ST, #129, 9000,
147.2, 154.4}, T11 130.4 h, T12 217.4, T13 72, T14 162.7, T21 164, t11 x111/833.333 x112/1250 x121/833.333 x122/1250 x131/
T22 232, and T23 216.03. Also by denition, we have C1 1/ 833.333 x132/1250 6  72
f1 0.0012 and C2 2/f2 0.0016. For this case problem, we have
U 6 h. From Fig. 7, we can observe that only B14 < A21 holds, which x141 x142 20000
implies that there are two groups of DTSs, i.e., d 2. Then, we can
formulate the linear programming model for the problem as t11 x111/833.333 x112/1250 x121/833.333 x122/1250 x131/
follows. 833.333 x132/1250 x141/833.333 x142/1250 6  162.7

Minimize J C1  (x111 x121 x131 x141 x211 x221 x231) t21  t11 x111/833.333 x112/1250 x121/833.333 x122/
C2  (x112 x122 x132 x142 x212 x222 x232) 1250 x131/833.333 x132/1250 x141/833.333 x142/1250
56 N. Wu et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 166 (2017) 49e57
A11 A12 A13 A14 B14 A21
#2 #2 #1 #1
#180 #181 #127 #182
0
20 40 60 80
Fig. 8. Gantt chart for the optimized oil transportation schedule.
t21  92.8
x211 x212 34000
t21 x211/833.333 x212/1250 6  164
x221 x222 34000
t21 x211/833.333 x212/1250 x221/833.333 x222/1250 6  232
x231 x232 9000
t21 x211/833.333 x212/1250 x221/833.333 x222/1250 x231/
833.333 x232/1250 6  216.03
xijh  0 and ti1  0
As pointed out above, for the obtained formulation, there are
only 16 variables and 17 constraints, which is small and easy to
solve. It is solved by using CPLEX with
x111 x121 x141 x212 x222 x232 0, x112 20000, x122 20000,
x131 17000, x132 17000, x142 20000, x211 34000, x221 34000,
and x231 9000. The obtained schedule is illustrated by the Gantt
chart in Fig. 8, where an orange bar presents that the oil is trans-
ported by using two sets of machines, while a green bar represents
that one set of machine is used. By this schedule, Aij's and Bij's are
modied as A12 16, A13 32, A14 66, B14 90, A21 92.8,
A22 133.6, A23 174.4, and A24 185.2 such that it is feasible.
Notice that A14 6 72 T13 to guarantee that the Oil Type #1
charged to Charging Tank #117 is usable at time T13. To do so, Oil
Type #2 charged into Charging Tanks #180 and #181, and part of Oil
Type #1 charged to #117 should be transported by using two sets of
machines, otherwise an obtained schedule is infeasible.
By observing Fig. 8, it can be seen that higher priority is given to
the use of one set of machines since this mode is more energy-
efcient. By the schedule obtained by using the proposed
method, we have J 228. However, by the schedule given in Fig. 7,
we have J 273.6. This implies that the objective is reduced by
(273.6e228)/273.6 z 16.7%, i.e., signicant energy is saved.
5. Conclusions
It is commonly recognized that, to be competitive in a global
market, an oil renery should be well operated. Since the sched-
uling problem of a renery is extremely complicated and chal-
lenging, much attention has been paid to this issue. In this research
eld, the main focus is on nding an efcient approach such that
the scheduling problem is computationally solvable and some ob-
jectives are optimized. In the existing methods, the objectives
include maximizing productivity, minimizing oil inventory, mini-
mizing changeover, and so on. However, no much work is found to
take energy efciency as an objective in scheduling an oil renery.
Due to the great effect of greenhouse on the global climate, an
enterprise is required to be sustainable, i.e., energy efciency is
A22 A23 A24 A25
#6 #6 #1 #2 #3
#116 #117 #129 #128 #127
Time (H)
100 120 140 160 180 200 220 240
vitally important. This work addresses this critical issue in sched-
uling a renery.
In our previous work, we present a control-theoretic-based
approach to the scheduling problem of crude oil operations, by
which a schedule can be efciently found. Based on the approach,
this work studies the energy efciency problem in crude oil oper-
ations. Since oil transportation from storage tanks to charging tanks
consumes a large part of energy in crude oil operations, the
objective of this work is to reduce the energy consumption in
transporting oil via a pipeline. With the relation between oil
transportation rate and energy consumption being highly non-
linear, to obtain a practically applicable method, it is crucial to
avoid non-linearity. By considering the fact that, in practice, the oil
transportation rate is regulated by changing the number of sets of
machines at each pumping station and, for a given number of sets
of machines, there is a most energy-efcient oil transportation rate,
only a limited number of rates to be selected. Based on such an
operation mode, a method is proposed to formulate the energy
efciency problem of scheduling crude oil operations as a linear
programming problem. By this formulation, energy saving is real-
ized by delaying the transportation of some oil parcels if possible
with lower oil ow rate. In this way, we avoid non-linearity and
integer variables in the model. A real-life case study is presented to
show the application of the proposed method. It is found that, for
such a case problem, there are less than 20 constraints and it is easy
to solve. Also, signicant energy can be saved. Thus, the proposed
method not only optimizes the energy consumption, but also is
applicable to real-life problems due to its computational simplicity.
Note that the linear programming formulation is an approxi-
mate model for the non-linear process. It is useful to do comparison
study with a non-linear model. Also, there are more issues for en-
ergy saving in scheduling crude oil operations. For example, there
are high fusion oil types whose fusion point is higher than 30  C.
Hence, when such oil types are transported from one place to
another via a pipeline, they need to be heated. Then, they are stored
in tanks and cool down. When they are to be processed, they need
to be heated again. Also, when the middle products come just from
a device, they are very hot. Then, they are stored in tanks and cool
down. However, when they go to the next processing step, they
need to heat up. In this way, large amount of energy is consumed,
which can be greatly saved if the operations are properly sched-
uled. This is the issues for our future research work.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by Science and Technology
Development Fund (FDCT) of Macau under Grants 106/2016/A3 and
078/2015/A3, and National Natural Foundation of China under
Grants 61273036 and 61603100.
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