Transport schedule optimization in light-hydrocarbon station

The liquid light-hydrocarbon pipeline networks in Daqing Oilfield, a multiple source system with multiple injection points, adopt mixed transportation of primary stable hydrocarbon, light-cooling hydrocarbon and cryogenic hydrocarbon. Now, the pump faces problems like frequent startup and shutdown, big pressure fluctuation, high energy consumption and high risk. Based on full consideration of the transportation sequence constraint of different light- hydrocarbon in each light-hydrocarbon station and the constraint of tank capacity, targeting at minimizing the times of pump startup during the research time, the model of schedule optimization for light-hydrocarbon transport station is build to calculate the time window distribution of the optimized transportation in the light-hydrocarbon station. A two-phase approach is used to solve the equation and finally an actual example is used to verify that the algorithm is feasible. The calculation results show that the times of pump startup in the new transportation scheme is 61.6% less than the times in the traditional scheme, reducing the equipment weardown, electricity consumption and managing and operating problems due to frequent startup and shutdown of pump.