A Branch-and-Price Method for a Liquefied Natural Gas Inventory Routing Problem

Authors:
Roar Grønhaug;Marielle Christiansen;Guy Desaulniers;Jacques Desrosiers
Affiliations:
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway;Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway;GERAD, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, Québec H3T 1J4, Canada;GERAD, HEC Montréal, Montréal, Québec H3T 2A7, Canada
Venue:
Transportation Science
Year:
2010

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Abstract

We consider a maritime inventory routing problem in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) business, called the LNG inventory routing problem (LNG-IRP). Here, an actor is responsible for the routing of the fleet of special purpose ships, and the inventories both at the liquefaction plants and the regasification terminals. Compared to many other maritime inventory routing problems, the LNG-IRP includes some complicating aspects such as (1) a constant rate of the cargo evaporates each day and is used as fuel during transportation; (2) variable production and consumption of LNG, and (3) a variable number of tanks unloaded at the regasification terminals. The problem is solved by a branch-and-price method. In the column generation approach, the master problem handles the inventory management and the port capacity constraints, while the subproblems generate the ship route columns. Different accelerating strategies are implemented. The proposed method is tested on instances inspired from real-world problems faced by a major energy company.