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.