The aim of this study is to develop a methodology for short-term crude oil unloading, tank inventory management, and crude distillation unit (CDU) charging schedule using mixed integer linear programming (MILP) optimization model as an extension to a previous work reported by Lee et al. (1996). The authors attempt to improve the previous model by adding an interval-interval variation constraint to avoid CDU charging rate fluctuation, a shutdown penalty within the scheduling cycle and a set up penalty for tank-tank transfer and introducing demand violation permit for a more flexible model against obtaining infeasible solution. Three different cases from the original paper were used to test the validity of the improved model. Comparison between Cases 1 and 2 shows the advantage of using smaller time interval as the operating cost of Case 2 is lower. Two scenarios were created from Case 3 to show the benefits of the improved model in deciding the best schedule to use. The improved model was implemented using the CPLEX solver in GAMS. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.