Study On Transportation Network Optimization Of Iron Ore In Bohai Rim

With the steady and rapid development of national economy, the demand for steel in China is enjoying rapid growth. China's iron ore resources are abundant, but most of the domestic iron ore can not meet the steel production demand in both quality and quantity aspects. China imports large quantities of iron ore each year, and the degree of dependence on foreign imports of iron ore rised from 38.6% in 2000 to 62.5% in 2010. As an important iron and steel production base in China, the Northern Areas import large quantities of iron ore from the Bohai circle areas each year through the port and iron ore imports in the future is still increasing every year. At present, our country do not possess the right of speak on iron ore price negotiation. Hence, how to choose transport routes reasonably and use resources in the ports in Bohai circle areas became a highest priority to reduce costs for steel enterprises. The 40-ton ore ships have been put into use, which put forward new requirements on the layout and operation of the unloading ports in Bohai circle areas.This article analyses iron ore supply and import situation in two levels respectively which are China and Bohai circle areas. On that basis, the article conductes development forecast of China's Bohai circle areas and discusses the necessity of ore transport network structure optimization. As the ore imports quantity of Bohai circle areas is increasing year by year and 40-ton ore transport ships have been put into use, it proposed new requirements on the ability and layout of ore unloading terminals in Bohai circle areas. This article regards transport network as a system and proposes an iron ore transport system, which uses large unloading terminals as transhipment port and other major small ports as supplementary.The article introduces transport network structure involved parameters by integrating import ore origin, transport routes, maximum ton of unloading ports and transhipment ports, maximum ton which the routes can undertake and so on. Adopting unit cost as index, the paper carrys on economic evaluation on ore transport network structure, thus optimizes ore transport network structure in China's Bohai circle areas. According to the future development of steel enterprises as well as iron ore transport ships being large-scaled, the steel enterprises in Bohai circle areas can make full use of port resources, choose the better iron ore import routes to improve transport efficiency and minimize transportation cost, which can provide strategy and practical references for the steel enterprises to reduce the shipping cost of imported iron ore.