Discrete flow pooling problems in coal supply chains

Abstract: The pooling problem is a nonconvex nonlinear programming problem (NLP) with applications in the refining and petrochemical industries, but also the coal mining industry. The problem can be stated as follows: given a set of raw material suppliers (inputs) and qualities of the supplies, find a cost-minimising way of blending these raw materials in intermediate pools and outputs so as to satisfy requirements on the output qualities. The blending in two stages (in pools and outputs) introduces bilinear constraints. The pooling problem can alternatively be described as a minimum cost network flow problem with additional bilinear constraints to capture the blending of raw materials.