Supercritical water process integrated with visbreaker

An integrated method for upgrading a heavy oil, the method comprising the steps of:

• introducing the heavy oil to a supercritical water unit;
• processing the heavy oil in the supercritical water unit to produce an upgraded heavy oil;
• introducing the upgraded heavy oil to a visbreaker unit;
• processing the upgraded heavy oil in the visbreaker unit to produce a visbreaker effluent stream;
• introducing the visbreaker effluent stream to a fractionator;
• and
• separating the visbreaker effluent stream in the fractionator to produce a bottoms stream.

A method for upgrading a heavy oil, the method comprising the steps of:

• introducing the heavy oil to a supercritical water unit;
• processing the heavy oil in the supercritical water unit to produce an upgraded heavy oil;
• mixing the upgraded heavy oil with a visbreaker product to produce a mixed product stream;
• introducing the mixed product stream to a fractionator;
• separating the mixed product stream in the fractionator to produce a bottom fraction;
• separating a bottom split stream from the bottom fraction;
• introducing a bottom fraction to a visbreaker unit;
• and
• processing the bottom fraction in the visbreaker unit to produce the visbreaker product.