A multiproduct pipeline provides an economic mode of transportation for petroleum products when large quantities of these products are transported over long distance. In such a pipeline, different petroleum products and derivatives are pumped back-to-back without separation devices between products. The sequence and lengths of such pumping runs should be carefully selected in order to meet market demands while minimizing pipeline operation costs. Production at the source node of the pipeline should also be synchronized with transportation.

In this paper we propose a multi-period mixed integer programming (MILP) model for an integrated approach to the planning of both production and transportation of petroleum products through a pipeline system. The system contains a single pipeline where a refinery is located at one end of the pipeline supplying several deposits along this pipeline. Numerical examples presented in this paper showed that using a multiple period model will result in significant cost savings compared to using a single period model for each planning period separately. The examples also showed that an economic advantage can be obtained by synchronizing production and transportation activities through an integrated planning approach.