The liquefied natural gas infrastructure and tanker fleet sizing problem

We consider a strategic infrastructure and tanker fleet sizing problem in the liquefied natural gas business. The goal is to minimize long-term on-shore infrastructure and tanker investment cost combined with interrelated expected cost for operating the tanker fleet. A non-linear arc-based model and an exact solution method based on a set-partitioning formulation are developed. The latter approach allows very fast solution times. Computational results for a case study with a liner shipping company are presented, including an extensive sensitivity analysis to account for limited predictability of key parameter values, to analyze the solutions' robustness and to derive basic decision rules. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.