Application of Minimum-Cost Flow Problem for Shuttle Tanker Transportation Planning

With the increasing demand for crude oil, offshore oil exploration has become a prevailing industry. Shuttle tankers, the watercraft for offshore oil transportation, play a key role in ensuring the safety of the offshore oil supply. Transportation cost is a critical consideration for offshore oil companies. The shuttle tanker transportation problem is formulated here as a network flow model with the objective of improving the efficiency of transportation as well as reducing the cost for offshore oil companies. The proposed model is converted to the typical minimum-cost network flow problem and is solved by the classical minimum-cost path algorithm. A real-world example is presented to demonstrate the application of the model. Results show that the proposed model and the corresponding algorithm can provide guidance to minimize the transportation cost of shuttle tankers.