A New Reactive Scheduling Approach for Short-Term Crude Oil Operations under Tank Malfunction

A new reactive scheduling model in the form of FRS (full rescheduling strategy) for front-end crude oil operations has been developed. The reactive rescheduling model is triggered off across all the units at the time that tank malfunction is detected. As compared to the previous work (Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.. 2014, 53, 12502-12518) more practical features have been addressed on tank failure handling solutions: (i) failure tank leftover inventory will be first evacuated to a backup tank, and later on directed to downstream units, and (ii) failure tank leftover inventory will be immediately directed to its downstream units. Furthermore, comprehensive strategy analyses have been conducted on partial rescheduling strategy (PRS) and FRS to validate their respective pros and cons. It is found out from case studies that although FRS results in more operational costs than PRS due to an increased number of time events, FRS is more flexible and less susceptible to current scheduling results, which ensures more robust solution identification as compared to the rigid solution space defined by PRS which sometimes leads to operational infeasibility.