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US 4,454,023 AGranted
Process for upgrading a heavy viscous hydrocarbon
AssigneeAlberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority
InventorIrvin H. Lutz
Life of this patent
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AssigneeAlberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority
InventorIrvin H. Lutz
Estimating the term…
A process for upgrading a heavy viscous hydrocarbon, for example, rendering a heavy viscous crude pipelinable, includes visbreaking, distillation and solvent extraction steps. A heavy viscous hydrocarbon is fed through the visbreaker which forms a feed to the distillation step. A heavier fraction from distillation is fed to a solvent extraction unit which produces a fraction which contains resin. At least a portion of the resin containing fraction separated in the solvent extraction unit is recycled and combined with the feed which is to be subject to visbreaking so that the total yield of products, residual and gas-free, is increased. The recycled resin reduces the tendency of the asphaltenes to separate from the oil and thereby reduces the tendency to lay down coke in the visbreaker; this allows higher conversion to upgraded liquid products.
In an improved process for upgrading heavy viscous hydrocarbons which includes visbreaking the heavy viscous hydrocarbons or portion thereof in a visbreaker heater with or without a soaking drum, fractionating the visbreaker heater output in a distillation step, and solvent processing a heavier fraction from the distillation step in a solvent extraction step to form two or more fractions including a heavier fraction containing a large percentage of asphaltenes and one or more lighter fractions containing a large percentage of resins and oils;
A process for upgrading a heavy viscous hydrocarbon comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.