A multi-refinery, multi-period modeling system for the Turkish petroleum refining industry

As part of Turkey’s efforts to position itself to join the European Economic Community before the end of the century, the Turkish Petroleum Refineries Corporation (TUPRAS) is seeking to upgrade the specifications of her domestically refined petroleum products to approach and ultimately match the specifications that will be in effect throughout Europe. TUPRAS also seeks to increase production of refined products to try to keep pace with increasing domestic demand. Significant capital investment over the next 15 years will be required to attain these goals. TUPRAS senior management commissioned the authors to develop mathematical programming models for studying their strategic investment options, to exercise the models in performing an extensive analysis of the options, and to transfer to TUPRAS a decision support system based on the models for continuing analysis. The system is used by TUPRAS to analyze capital investments worth tens of millions of dollars.