An oil pipeline design problem

Copyright @ 2003 INFORMSWe consider a given set of offshore platforms and onshore wells producing known (or estimated) amounts of oil to be connected to a port. Connections may take place directly between platforms, well sites, and the port, or may go through connection points at given locations. The configuration of the network and sizes of pipes used must be chosen to minimize construction costs. This problem is expressed as a mixed-integer program, and solved both heuristically by Tabu Search and Variable Neighborhood Search methods and exactly by a branch-and-bound method. Two new types of valid inequalities are introduced. Tests are made with data from the South Gabon oil field and randomly generated problems.The work of the first author was supported by NSERC grant #OGP205041. The work of the second author was supported by FCAR (Fonds pour la Formation des Chercheurs et l’Aide à la Recherche) grant #95-ER-1048, and NSERC grant #GP0105574