Simultaneous Bunkering and Cargo Operations Under a Continuous Berth Layout: Cost and Emission Trade-Offs at a Mediterranean Transhipment Hub

Background: Container terminals increasingly permit bunkering alongside during cargo operations, shortening port calls but extending quay occupancy when bunkering outlasts cargo handling. This study asks where bunkering should occur on a continuous quay and how this affects cost and emissions. Methods: An integrated bunker supply and berth allocation problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programme with three bunkering locations: berth, anchorage before berthing, and anchorage after cargo. Berth occupancy equals the later of cargo and bunkering completion. An emission layer without binary variables converts hotelling and barge movements into CO2 and SO2. The model is solved on 210 synthetic instances calibrated on 2014 Tangier Med data. Results: Within 60 seconds on an open solver, optimality is proven for all instances up to 10 vessels, 22 of 30 with 20 vessels, and none with 40. Integration yields no saving on the median instance and up to 74.9% on one instance. The alongside share falls from 96.9% to 42.4% as bunkering duration grows six-fold. Conclusions: Integrated planning is a targeted rather than general tool. Both operating rules lie far from optimal; the anchorage surcharge, not the lateness penalty, moves bunkering off the quay.