Planning of a flexible refined products transportation network in response to emergencies

The stable supply of refined products is a vital measure to maintain national security and economic development. However, unexpected accidents and incidents, such as pipeline failures, natural hazards, and even this Covid-19 period can disrupt the supply of refined products to the end-users, leading to shortages on the demand side. This issue should be considered in advance in the planning process to increase transportation flexibility. In this paper, a MILP model-based method is proposed to increase the operational flexibility of refined products transportation. This model takes into account several failure conditions of routes during the transportation process and determines the backup transport route plans. The illustration case study demonstrates how to build a more flexible refined products transportation process through expanding transport and sending capacities to satisfy the demand for refined products in market depots. The results show that the capacity expansion plans are different when disruptions are individually and simultaneously considered, a 33.60% difference in the expansion cost. The proposed method could be helpful to ensure the supply of retail markets when facing emergencies.