A Refueling Scheme Optimization Model for the Voyage Charter with Fuel Price Fluctuation and Ship Deployment Consideration

Abstract Due to the long operation cycle of maritime transportation and frequent fluctuations of the bunker fuel price, the refueling expenditure of a chartered ship at different time or ports of call make significant difference. From the perspective of shipping company, an optimal set of refueling schemes for a ship fleet operating on different voyage charter routes is an important decision. To address this issue, this paper presents an approach to optimize the refueling scheme and the ship deployment simultaneously with considering the trend of fuel price fluctuations. Firstly, an ARMA model is applied to forecast a time serials of the fuel prices. Then a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model is proposed to maximize total operating profit of the shipping company. Finally, a case study on a charter company with three bulk carriers and three voyage charter routes is conducted. The results show that the optimal solution saves the cost of 437,900 USD compared with the traditional refueling scheme, and verify the rationality and validity of the model.