Process to treat heavy oil or bitumen or mixtures of dilutants and heavy oil or bitumen

A process for continuously fractionating hydrocarbons, comprising:

• providing a hydrocarbon feed fluid comprising a heavy oil component and a light end component;
• feeding the hydrocarbon feed fluid upwardly into an inner inlet tube of an upwardly inclined dual tube device, the dual tube device being inclined upwardly from horizontal by between 30° and 70°, the inner inlet tube being housed within an annular outer tube, the space between the inner inlet tube and the outer tube forming an annulus in fluid communication with the inlet tube, the upper end of the inner inlet tube terminating in an open inlet tube upper end within the outer tube, an upper portion of the outer tube extending above and beyond the open inlet tube upper end, so that the hydrocarbon feed fluid exits the open inlet tube upper end and flows downwardly into the annulus;
• externally heating a lower portion of the outer tube, so that downwardly flowing hydrocarbon feed fluid in the annulus is heated, to form a heated hydrocarbon fluid in the annulus, the heated hydrocarbon fluid thereby providing counter-current heating of the hydrocarbon feed fluid in the inner inlet tube;
• maintaining fractionating conditions within the annulus, so that the heated hydrocarbon fluid is thermally fractionated into a volatile upward gaseous fluid flow and a residual downward liquid fluid flow, the gaseous fluid comprising the light end component and the liquid fluid comprising the heavy oil component, the fractionating conditions comprising an effective residence time for the heated hydrocarbon fluid in the annulus of from 1 to 20 minutes, or from 1 to 10 minutes;
• collecting the light end component from a light end outlet port in the upper end of the outer tube;
• and,
• collecting the heavy oil component from a heavy oil outlet port in the lower end of the annulus.