Optimization of petroleum products distribution via pipeline systems: Modeling and computational challenges

Optimizing the distribution of refined oil products using pipeline systems has been posing a meaningful challenge to the operations research field of exceptional economic importance for the oil and gas industry. The solution of this problem stands on the interface of chemical engineering and operations research, the former has been the most important contributor, and the latter has been paying an increasing amount of attention to its solution over the last ten years or so. The goal of this work is fourfold: to unveil the current shape of the accomplished research work on this topical area according to its descriptive analytics, to present and discuss its modeling research perspectives, to outline its emerging research trends and to trigger discussions on its future research avenues. A future research agenda should study more realistic mathematical models for the system and solution procedures that exploit their algebraic structure.