The Study On Shipping Route Selection Of Imported Iron Ore From Brazil To Wisco

With the rapid development of China's steel industry, the demand for iron ore has a significant increase. The reserve of China's iron ore is large, but the grade is low and can not meet the needs of production of iron and steel enterprises. Thus, with the increase of steel production, China's iron and steel enterprises are increasingly dependent on imported iron ore. Yangtze River is China's the base of iron and steel production, where there are 20 of iron and steel companies. Being located in the middle of Yangtze River, Wisco (Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation) is the second largest iron and steel company of Yangtze River region. Brazil is the world's largest iron ore exporter, and is the most important supplier of Wisco. Wisco's annual imported iron ore from Brazil account for more than 30% of its demand. Australian ore goes against Wisco's decreasing its production cost, so Wisco has increased the volume of Brazilian fine ore.Because of the special location, the iron ore shipping of the iron and steel enterprises along the Yangtze River will across three different navigation areas of the ocean, offshore and Yangtze River, and the situation is very complex. Therefore, the procurement cost of steel enterprises along the Yangtze River is much higher than the enterprises in other regions. In order to reduce the procurement costs, iron and steel companies often make contract of COA to fix the freight rates during the contract period. Since only the volume and the freight rates are stipulated in the contract, the carriers can flexibly arrange the form of ships'operations to minimize the savings and the costs. Especially for the carriers who carry the imported iron ore of the iron and steel companies along the Yangtze River, how to select the best shipping path is the important decision to reduce the operating costs. However, there are various uncertain factors in the shipping market, which have a great influence on operating costs of the shipping companies.Based on the consideration of the uncertainty of the ships'fuel prices, this paper selects the shipping network of imported iron ore from Tubarao of Brazil to Wisco industry port from the perspective of shipping company and establishes the routing selection model of imported iron ore shipping from Tubarao to Wisco industry port under the uncertainty, using the uncertain programming theory to convert this uncertain model into the certain model and solving it with conventional methods. Finally, the best shipping mode, shipping route and shipping arrangement plan of imported iron ore from Tubarao to Wisco industry port are solved. The results show that the operating costs will be the lowest for the shipping company with the combination of loading shedding mode and the mode of directing from seas to rivers, using larger tonnage of bulk ships and transferring from Ningbo Port and Qingdao Port.