Scheduling Crude Oil Blending and Tanks Inventory Control under CDU Demand Uncertainty: A Receding Horizon Approach

The scheduling of crude oil processing for charging crude distillation unit (CDU) in petroleum refinery is a serious challenge especially when the CDU demand is uncertain. In this paper, we have shown that the problem of crude oil blending and inventory management scheduling under uncertainty can be cast in the framework of receding horizon control strategy. Fixed-end receding horizon is proposed and applied to a crude oil scheduling model to obtain schedules in a receding-like manner corresponding to different time steps over different prediction horizon lengths. Through case studies, this solution procedure was compared with the traditional scheduling solution approach and then with moving-end receding horizon strategy. Different disturbance scenarios are generated to evaluate the performance of the two receding horizon approaches in terms of efficiency to accommodate demand uncertainty.