This book considers the problem of determining how many barrels of crude oil an oil-producing and exporting country should produce annually for export¿along with several other important problems that decision-makers in the crude oil industry face¿and discusses procedures for ¿nding optimum solutions for them. It considers the important Objective Functions they need in making these critical decisions, and discusses procedures to ¿nd the best solutions. Outputs from the treatment units, in an oil re¿nery are only semi-¿nished products; these are blended into ¿nished products like gasoline, diesel oil, etc., meeting various speci¿cations that the marketplace demands. The book discusses models for solving these problems optimally with examples.

¿Katta G. Murty is an Emeritus Professor of industrial and Operations engineering at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Professor Murty teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in linear, integer and non-linear programming and network flows. His recent research includes studies in mathematical programming and its applications as well as research on optimization algorithms. He is the author of eight books on linear and non-linear programming and network flows, and an undergraduate text on Operations Research-Deterministic Optimization Models.

Chapter 1. History of Crude Oil Refining.- Chapter 2. Operations Inside a Crude Oil Refinery.- Chapter 3. How Much Crude Oil Should an Oil Exporting Country Produce Annually for Export?- Chapter 4. Clustering Problems in Offshore Drilling of Crude Oil Wells.- Chapter 5. A Product Mix Optimization Application at Saudi ARAMCO.- Chapter 6. Product Blending Operations in Crude Oil Refineries.- Chapter 7. Crude Oils Blending in Oil Refineries to Prepare Feedstock into Crude Distillation.- Chapter 8. Pump Allocation at a New Zealand Oil Refinery.