Designing a distribution network for supplying the offshore exploration and production of oil

• Grant number: 14/09342-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: August 19, 2014
• End date: February 18, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Production Engineering - Operational Research
• Principal Investigator: André Bergsten Mendes
• Grantee: André Bergsten Mendes
• Host Investigator: Yue Wu
• Host Institution: Escola Politécnica (EP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Southampton, England

Abstract

This research is focused on designing a distribution network for supplying rigs and production units in an offshore oil basin. The network considered involves onshore suppliers, ports, distribution centers to be located at the sea and the offshore units. Given that the distribution centers are anchored floating units, they can be moved to other places as the exploratory and productive frontier evolves, being this an innovative feature to be studied. Additionally, the demand must be attended on a given frequency of visits, being this the current operational praxis. It is also important to incorporate the fleet composition decisions in the network design. This problem can be considered a rich variation of the location-routing problem, which is known to be NP-hard. This research aims to classify the current problem based on the existing literature, to propose mathematical models and to develop methods for solving the deterministic version of the problem. It will also be discussed and structured the stochastic version. Nevertheless, the methods for solving the stochastic version will be concluded after the scholarship period. This research will be developed in cooperation with a researcher from the School of Management of the University of Southampton, who has been working with robust optimization applied to supply chains under uncertainty. (AU)