Port operations on crude oil: A bibliographic review on simulation and operations research

Abstract

The maritime traffic of crude oil and derivatives is still very relevant, both from a geostrategic perspective and regarding the total volume of liquid bulk shipped. Due to the regional imbalance in terms of reserves, production and consumption, important maritime traffic is generated, and a necessity for the industry of optimizing these processes, with the goal to minimize costs and give an efficient answer in logistic terms. From this perspective, the operation research techniques, and the traffic modeling techniques aimed at optimization, can be presented as a very convenient methodology over the last seventy years, a stream of scientific publications has emerged with different quantitative and qualitative focus. This research aims to gather, analyze and classify the traffic models of crude oil and derivatives and to order the innovation concepts gradually introduced. In order to achieve this goal, conceptual bibliographic research is performed showing how the subsequent improvements have been introduced and, at the same time, erasing the initial restrictions.