Abstract:

Within a long-term non-negotiable purchase and sale model with inflexible contract prices of China’s LNG import trade model， large losses and intensified contradiction between domestic natural gas supply and demand occur. The optimization of LNG seaborne trade ordering strategy for reasonableness on contract execution time and order quantity is explored， as well as mitigation of domestic natural gas supply-demand contradiction. In this paper， LNG supply chain operation cost minimization is taken as the objective function， while contract execution time and ordering quantity as the decision variables. Applying consider constraints such as terminal safety storage capacity， berth quantity， demand satisfaction， quality satisfaction， etc.， LNG maritime trade ordering strategy optimization model and the CPLEX solver are implemented， so as to achieve economical LNG ordering optimization. Five major LNG import routes and a domestic LNG receiving station configuration are investigated， while the stable and fluctuating demand scenarios are set up respectively for simulation.Results indicate that not only reasonableness of contract execution time and ordering quantity decision， but also the LNG demand and client’s gas quality requirements can be fulfilled by the optimal ordering plan obtained from the optimization model of LNG maritime trade ordering strategy. Implications of effective solution and decision support for the LNG maritime trade ordering strategy optimization are put forward for good prospects for practical application.

Key words: LNG supply chain, ordering strategy, contract selection, mixed integer programming model