Toggle Main Menu Toggle Search

Open Access padlockePrints

Bunkering Policies for a Fuel Bunker Management Problem for Liner Shipping Networks

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Arijit DeORCiD

Downloads


Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).


Abstract

This paper investigates the problem of bunker fuel management for liner shipping networks under different fuel pricing scenarios and taking into consideration different fuel bunkering policies. The fuel consumption of a vessel on a sailing leg may fluctuate as the real vessel speed deviates from the planned vessel speed. Furthermore, fluctuation of fuel prices at various ports increases the complexity of bunkering decisions related to the selection of the bunkering ports and the estimation of bunkered fuel cost.We have developed a mixed integer non-linear programming model to minimise the total expected cost consisting of inventory cost related to container transportation, operating cost associated with ship hiring, as well as bunkering cost and fuel consumption cost at the port. The novelty of our research lies in its consideration of stochastic fuel consumption for different sailing legs, stochastic fuel prices at each port and different fuel bunkering policies to determine optimal bunker fuel management strategies for the selection of bunkering ports and for the estimation of the amount of bunkered fuel required.We have proposed a novel approximate algorithm based on mathematical formulation and the fuel bunkering policies to calculate the total expected cost; the fuel inventory while arriving at and departing from the port; the number of vessels hired for weekly service; the arrival and departure time of the ship; and the amount of fuel bunkered at a port. We have performed extensive computational experiments on the practical routes to demonstrate the applicability, efficacy and robustness of the proposed novel methodology.


Publication metadata

Author(s): De A, Choudhary A, Turkay M, Tiwari M

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: European Journal of Operational Research

Year: 2021

Volume: 289

Issue: 3

Pages: 927-939

Print publication date: 16/03/2021

Online publication date: 27/07/2019

Acceptance date: 22/07/2019

Date deposited: 27/07/2019

ISSN (print): 0377-2217

ISSN (electronic): 1872-6860

Publisher: Elsevier BV

URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejor.2019.07.044

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2019.07.044


Altmetrics

Altmetrics provided by Altmetric


Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
R/141842

Share