CA1314260C - Pipelineable syncrude from heavy oil - Google Patents

Abstract

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE
Heavy crude oils unsuitable for pipelining without addition of solvent or cutter stock are upgraded by a mild thermal treatment which is more severe than conventional visbreaking but less severe than delayed coking, followed by a mild, solvent-deasphalting step. The mild solvent-deasphalting is effective in rejecting a major fraction of the metals and Conradson Carbon Residue of the crude, and directly produces a pipelineable syncrude of much better quality than the original crude for cracking and/or hydrocracking. The asphalt by-product is burned to produce process steam necessary for the production of the crude. The process described minimizes investment and operating cost, and is adaptable to skid-mounting for on-site operation.

Description

131426~

PI~ELINEABLE SYNC~E FROM HE~yy_Ql~
Field of-th~ Inventio~
This invention is concerned with upgrading heavy crude oil.
It is particularly concerned with manufacturing a pipelineable syncrude fro~ heavy crude oil. This invention is also concerned with manufacturing a syncrude of improved quality from a heavy crude oil.
B~ RQ~N~ Q~ INV~NTIQ~
Extensive reserves of petroleum in the form of so-called ~heavy crudes" exist in a number of countries, including Western Canada, Venezuela, Russia, the United ~tates and elsewhere. Many of these reserves are located in relatively inaccessible geographic regions. The United Nations Institute For Training And Research (UNITAR) has defined heavy crudes as those having an lS API gravity of less than 20, suggesting a high conte~.t of polynuclear compounds and a relatively low hydrogen content. The term "heavy cruden, whenever used in this specificatiol, means a crude having an API gravity of less than 20. In addition to a high specific gravity, heavy crudes in general have other proper-ties in common, including a high content of metals, nitrogen,sulfur and oxygen, and a high Conradson Carbon Residue (CCR).
The heavy crudes generally are not fluid at ambient temperatures and do not meet local specifications for pipelineability. It has been proposed that such crudes resulted from microbial action which consumed alkanes, leaving behind the heavier, more complex structures which are now present.
A typical heavy crude oil is that recovered from the tar sands deposits in the Cold Lake region of Alberta in northwestern Canada. The composition and boiling range properties of a Cold Lake crude (as given by V.N. Venketesan and W.R. Shu, J. Canad.
Petr. Tech., page 66, July-August 1986) is shown in Table A. A
topped Mexican heavy crude is included for comparison. The similarities are evident.
TABLE ~

Analys~s-Qf~May~-6sooF and cQld~Lake Qil Cold Lake (Lowe~ Grand Rapids Maya ~0F~ Prim~L~ PrQ~uction) % C 84.0 83.8 H 10.4 10.3 N 0.06 0.44 o 0.97 0.81 S 4.7 4.65 CCR 17.3 12.3 % C7-Insoluble Asphaltenes18.5 15.0 Ni, ppm 78 74 20V, ppm 372 175 Boil in~ Ra~ge 75-400F 0.62 75-400F1.3 400-800F 21.7 400-650F 15.2 800-1050F 19.0 650-1000F 29.7 251050F 58.71 1000F53.8 Cold Lake crude does not meet local (Canadian) pipeline specifications. A sample, believed typical, had the temperatu~e-flow behavior shown in Table B.
TA~LE ~
Tem~eratu~e ViscQsity. cs (cp~iQ~kes) 2C (28F) Solid 38C (100F) 4797 54C tl30F) 1137 100C (212F) 82 The heavy crudes play little or no role in present-day petroleum refineries. Two principal reasons for this are that they are not amenable to ordinary pipeline transportation, and that because of the high metals and CCR values, they are not readily converted to a high yield of gasoline and/or distillate fuels with conventional processing. The progressive depletion and rising cost of high quality crudes, however, create a need for new technology which would inexpensively convert heavy crudes to pipelineable syncrudes, preferably with concomitant upgrading of quality, i.e. ease of conversion to the gasoline and/or distillate fuels which are in heavy demand. Such technology would augment the supply of available crude, and would make it possible for refiners to blend such syncrude with a more conventional feed for catalytic cracking and hydrocracking.
A number of methods have been proposed for decreasing the viscosity o a heavy crude oil so as to improve its pumpability.
These include diluting with a light hydrocarbon stream, transpor-ting by heated pipeline! and using various processing options including visbreaking, coking and deasphalting. With most heavy crudes, conventional visbreaking or conventional deasphalting alone cannot give sufficient viscosity reduction. Attempts to reduce the viscosity to the required level by these routes usually lead to an incompatible two-phase product from visbreak-ing and to a very low yield of deasphalted syncrude from deasphalting.
RRIEF ~ESCRIPTION OF ~HE DRAWING
Figure 1. Process Flowsheet for a Preferred Embodiment.
Figure 2. Viscosity Temperature Data.

1 3 1 ~260 B~ MMARY OF THE I~yENTION
I have found that by thermally processing a heavy crude to a severity level higher than that normally used in conventional visbreaking, followed by deasphalting tbe thermally cracked product, it is possible to produce a low viscosity~ one-phase product at a very high yield, all as more fully described hereinbelow. Furthermore, the thermal step preceding the deasphalter greatly improves the efficiency of the deasphalter for rejecting metals and carbon into the asphalt stream. The asphalt product, the least valuable part of the crude, can be burned to provide much of the thermal energy which is usually required to produce the heavy crude sil.
It is important for purposes of the present invention that the thermal step precede (rather than follow) the deasphalting step. This sequence results in both a higher yield of syncrude at a specified viscosity level and a higher quality of syncrude than with the reverse sequence. The reasons for this unexpected result are not fully understood.
The syncrude produced by the method of this invention is of significantly higher quality than the crude from which it was derived. Furthermore, the "asphalt" from the deasphalting step iq a very low value fuel and it need not meet conventional product specifications since it will be consumed on site as fuel.
P~TAILE~ DEscRl~TIo~ PR~F~R~ MB~lMEN~ AN~ BEST MODE
The thermal step used in this invention is similar to the conventional visbreaking processes which have been used for years in petroleum refineries to reduce the amount of cutter stock needed to produce heavy fuel oil meeting viscosity specifications from residual oils. The process and apparatus need not be described here in detail since it is well known. Conventional visbreaking is conducted at final outlet temperatures of 800F to 900F and a total reaction time of only a few minutes. At high reaction severity, which is attained at longer times and higher temperatures, secondary reactions of condensation and polymeriza-tion become important. These reactions are undesirable since they lead to the production of coke and residual products which are not fully compatible with conventional cutter stocks. As a result, there is a maximum severity at which vi~breakers can be run. This maximum severity is known to be charge stock depen-dent.
Visbreaking, like thermal cracking~ is kinetically a first-order reaction. The severity of visbreaking is often expressed as ERT (equivalent residence time at 800F in secondsl, calcu-lated by multiplying the cold oil residence time above 800F bythe ra~io of relative reaction velocities as defined by Nelson (W.L. Nelson, Petroleum Refinery Engineering, 4th Ed., FIG. 19-18, page 675) taking into consideration the temperature profile across the visbreaker coil, usin~ the average temperature for each one foot segment of the coil above 800F. The maximum visbreaking severity varies for different crudes, but typically it is below about 700 ERT seconds. All references made herein to severity in terms of ERT or ERT seconds are intended to mean the equivalent severity at 800F in seconds, regardless of the actual tçmperature or temperatures used, calculated as described above or by a mathematically equivalent method.
In the present invention, the heavy oil is thermally treated at 800 to 950F and for a time to produce a severity of at least 700 ERT to about 3000 ERT seconds. While such severity would 131~260 normally not be tolerable in conventional visbreaking, formation of incompatible sediment is not a limiting factor in the process of this invention since the sediment will be rejected with the asphalt phase in the subsequent step of deasphalting.
While the broad permissible severity range is 700 ERT to 3000 ERT sec., as given above, there may be instances for specific crude for which the higher severities in the rangs result in substantial amounts of coke being formed, i.e. more than about 2 wt% coke. Because this coke is likely to interfere with continuous processing, it is much preferred to operate at a severity at least about 700 ERT sec. but less than that at which more than 2 wt~ coke forms. Within such range, increased severity produces a lower viscosity product and a larger amount of material boiling within the naphtha range withGut excessive coke formation. The term ~coke~, as used herein, means material that is insoluble in hot toluene.
Operating pressure for this invention is critical only insomuch as it determines the degree of vaporization ar.d hence the specific volume of the products and reactants in the reactor.
In a continuous unit this specific volume determines the velocity and residence time of the reactants and products. It is contemplated that reactor exit pressure would be between about 30 and 500 psig. Inlet prsssure would be that required to attain the desired velocity and residence time of the feed in the conversion apparatus.
For purposes of this invention, the simple conventional coil coker in which the coil is heated in a furnace may be used.
Alternatively, the design which employs a soaker drum for effecting the coking reaction may be used. The soaker drum 1 31 42~0 variant is preferred for purposes of the present invention. The ~erm "reactor" as used herein means either the coil alone where such is used, or the coil plus soaker drum otherwise. The "reactor outlet" in the latter case of course means the soaker drum outlet.
It is contemplated that any heavy crude may be used as feed to the process of this invention. Optionally, if desired, the heavy crude may be topped to remove materials boiling below 650F
before visbreaking.
At least 650F+ fraction of the product formed by thermal treatment according to this invention must be subject to a deasphalting step referred to herein as ~mild" deasphalting.
This is an important carbon rejection step, which not only reduces substantially the viscosity of the visbrGken product, and tbe Conradson Carbon Residue, but also very substantially reduces the content of metal and su fur in the final product. For purposes of the present invention, any paraffinic solvent useful for conventional deasphalting may be used. And, th~ solvent to oil ratio may be any conventional solvent to oil ratio useful with the chosen solven~. As will be illustrated by example, it will be shown that it is a feature of this invention that highly satisfactory deasphalting results are achieved even with naphthas, i.e. mixtures of hydrocarbon solvents. In one aspect of this invention, it is contemplated, and indeed particularly preferred, to use as deasphalting solvent naphthas boiling within the range of 30F to 200F that are recovered from the thermal conversion step. With this modification, no extrinsic source of naphtha is required. Solvent to oil ratios need not be extreme at either end, i.e. about 3:1 up to 10:1 may be used, thus 1 3 1 ~260 minimizing the processing and capital investment costs for this stage of the process. And finally, after conventional separation of the oil phase from the asphalt phase, it is not essential for purposes of this invention to completely remove the solvent from the asphalt phase or from the oil phase. With regard to the asphalt phase, it is contemplated that a small amount of residual solvent, such as 1 percent up to 10 percent, will improve the ease of pumping and the burning quality of the asphalt.
In a particularly preferred embodiment of this invention, it is preferred to recover at least the bulk of the solvent from the oil phase by supercritical separation.
Supercritical separation entails raising the oil and solvent mixture stream from the deasphalter to a temperature and pressure above the psuedocritical temperature and pressure of the solvent employed. At ~hese conditions the oi} and solvent separate into a l 1uid oil phase and a supercritical solvent phase. These phases can be drawn of the separator in a manner similar to a liquid/liquid separator. By separ~ting the solvent in this manner it is possible to attain the desired separation without supplying the heat of vaporization required in evaporative separation of the solvent. The net result is a considerable saving in process heat. It may or may not be necessary to steam strip a small amoun. of solvent from the oil in order to maintain solvent self sufficiency for the process as a whole. However, as stated earlier, it is not necessary nor in fact desirable to strip all the solvent from either the oil or asphalt phase in this invention. It is not necessary nor in fact desirable to recycle any of the deasphalter product streams back to the visbreaker since this can lead to overcracking and ~he afore-1 3 1 ~260 mentioned difficulties with secondary reactions.
Table V clearly brings out the unexpectedly cooperativeinteraction of deasphalting and visbreaking when visbre~king precedes deasphalting. The method of this invention results in rejection of 82% of the vanadium and about 75% of the nickel in the original crude, whereas operating in the reverse order, i.e.
by first deasphalting, the metals level is no better than accounted for by the deasphalting alone. As shown in Table V, the viscosity achieved by the method of this invention is only about 27% of that obtained by reversing the process steps. And, the Conradson Carbon is reduced by about half. In brief, the method of this invention produces an unexpectedly high quality stock at a lower than would be expected viscosity.
EXAM2~
The following examples are given to illustrate this invention, but they are not to be construed as limiting the scope thereof, which scope is determined by this entire specification and the appended claims.
The starting material for Examples 1-12 was the 650F+
fraction of San Ardo (Aurignac) crude. This fraction represents approximately 79 wt% of the total crude.
All of the visbreaking runs reported below were done in a shaker bomb. The procedure was to charge the desired sample to the 1000 ml reaction vessel, weigh the vessel and install it on the æhaker unit~ The bomb was pressure tested with nitrogen at 2000 psig several times and depressured to atmospheric pressure.
The shaker speed was set at 200 rpm and the heat input at 20 kw.
The bomb was heated to the run temperature in 3-4 minutes, held there for 400 seconds and then quenched rapidly to room tempera-ture with water spray. The bomb reached a pressure of 700-1650 psi during the run and 175-310 psi after quenching. When the bomb reached room temperature, it was depressured through a gas meter into a wet gas holder. The gas holder was depressured through gas sample bombs. The depressured reaction vessel was weighed to determine the total weight loss during the run for material balance purposes.
Examples 1-3 These examples illustrate visbreaking of the heavy crude at three severities, 781, 1463 and 2588 ERT seconds, respectively.
In each example a portion of the liquid product was filtered hot and the filter paper washed with hot toluene to determine the coke content of the product. The liquid from the lower tempera-ture runs, Examples 1 and 2, left some black sediment on the filter paper, but the total sediment was too small to measure.
The high severity run left 42.8 grams of coke from the 477 grams of oil charged. For the 820F and 840F runs the unfiltered liquid product was analyzed for properties, whereas for the 860F
run only the filtered liquid was used. The hot filtering technique probably resulted in the loss of some light material from the high temperature (860F) run.
The results are summarized in Table I. Properties of the untreated heavy crude are included for comparison.

TABLE
Visbreakin~ of 650F+ San Ardo Heavy Cr~d~

~eavy Example No.
Cru~de__- 1 2 3 Temperature, F - 820 840 860 Time a~ Temp., sec. - 400 400 400 ERT Sec. @ 800F - 781 1463 2588 Yi~l~s~ wt~ (1) Cs+ Liquid 100 96.1 93.5 79.55 Tot. Dry Gas - 3.32 5.56 8.94 Tot. C4 0.0 .59 .92 2.61 ~ot. Cs 0.0 .73 1.07 1.85 C6-420F 0.0 7.80 10.90 15.49 420-650F .8 14.41 17.60 17.87 650-1000F 39.8 34.73 30.42 21.38 1000+F 59.4 38.49 33.24 22.78 Coke 0.0 - - a.s ~9,,~
Ni, ppm 85 105 105 55 V, ppm 110 115 115 45 Sulfur, wt% 1.867 1.562 1.457 1.328 ~ Macro. 10.47 10.46 10.16 9.96 KV, cs @ 100F( 100,000)* 515 236 38 cs @ 210F1376 NA(42)NA(38) 4.6 CCR 13.29 15.59 17.57 15.31 Nitrogen, wt%1.08 1.13 .98 1.06 Pour Point, F 110 -10 -25 -50 Density, 70C1.0125 .9526 .9317 .9331 Bromine No. NA 29.2 32 35.2 (1) C6+ from simulated distillation D-2887.

(2) Numbers in parentheses represent extrapolations for samples which boiled or were too viscous.
ExamDles ~-7 Examples 4-7 and 8-11 are not within the scope of the present invention. They are given to illustrate the resul~s obtained by ~ deasphalting the heavy crude, and then visbreakang the deasphalted oil.
In Examples 4-7, four samples of the heavy San Ardo Crude were heptane deasphalted to various levels prior to charging to the shaker bomb. This was done at 3:1, 4:1, 5:1 and 10:1 heptane/oil ratios. The precipitated residue was collected on a fritted disk filter. The liquid was distilled to cleanly remove all of the heptane ~lvent from the oil.
The results obtained are summarized in Table II.
TA~LE II
Heptane Deas~ LDgL~f 650F+ San ~g H~ayy_Crude Example No.

Heavy ÇL~ 3 1 C7 4:1 C7 ~1 C7 10:1 C7 Li~uid Pro~er~iQ
Gravity, 77F1.0125 1.017 1.013 - 1.0 (e Gravity, API(7.5) (6.8) (7.4) (9.2) Hydrogen 10.47 10.56 10.63 10.58 10.74 Viscosity, cs @ 210~1677 1767 1294 1446.5 525 Vanadium, ppm 110 90 95 80 70 Nickel, ppm 85 90 95 80 65 Sulfur, wt~ 1.87 1.72 1.82 1.98 1.89 As~h~lt Pro~e~ties Asphalt Yield 0.0 .7 2.9 8.4 10.5 Vanadium, ppm - 345 385 305 385 Nickel, ppm - 290 315 244 325 Sulfur, wt~ 2.45 2.40 2.13 2.77 V Balance, wt% - 83.5 94.0 90.0 88.0 S Balance, wt% - 92.5 98.4 107 106 API @ 60F (11.0) (10.5) (9.5) (11.4) 131~260 ~xamples 8-11 These examples show the results obtained on visbreaking the deasphalted oils of Examples 4-7 at a severity of 780 ERT
seconds. The results are shown in Table III.

Visbreaki~q of ~easphalted 650F+ San ArdQ Heavv Crude Example No.

NC7/Oil Ratio in Deasphalting - 3/1 4/1 10/1 Gravity .9867 .9909 .9976 .9840 Hydrogen 10.22 10.20 10.30 10.46 Viscosity ~ 210F - - 32.85 25.73 Vanadium, ppm 100 96 96 69 Nickel, ppm 93 92 89 65 Sulfur, wt% 1.65 1.63 1.61 1.59 Pour Point -30 10 5 -5 CCR 17.1 14.1 (5/2)? 11.54 Nitrogen .83 .2 .71 .86 Bromine 28.1 29.3 27 32.5 % Precipitated 0.0 .7 2.9 10.5 Distillation IBP/10 208/389 221/400244i420240/4l 30/50 596/708 608/71361~/709608/7C
852 785 772 7c ~m~
This example illustrates the marked advantages of this invention. The visbroken oil from Example 1 was pentane deasphalted at a 5:1 ratio to yield 81.5 wt~ Cs+ syncrude based on heavy oil feed. Since some of the visbreaker product boils in 131~260 the same range as pentane, the stripping was continued only until the oil recovery was less than 100~. This left some pentane in the deasphalted oil to replace the light visbreaker products which boiled away. Table IV shows the elemental analysis of the syncrude compared with the heavy crude. Table V compares the properties of the syncrude from this invention with that resulting from deasphalting first ~Qllowe~ by visbreaking. As is evident, this invention provides a syncrude of much lower viscosity, CCR, and metals, and somewhat higher hydrogen content and reduced sulfur content than a syncrude formed by reversing the process steps. The syncrude produced by this invention is of substantially better quality as a refinery feedstock than that produced by first deasphalting the heavy crude.
TA~ IV
~ ude Visbroken then 5/1 Heavy Pentane ~L~Deasghalted 650F+ Crude Cs+ Yield, wt%100 81.5 Li~ui~_~Ls~C~

Ni, ppm 85 22 V, ppm 110 17 Sulfur, wt% 1.87 1.48 Hydrogen, wt%10.47 10.88 CCR, wt% 13.29 6.20 Nitrogen, wt%1.08 .8 Pour Point, F 110 -20 Cs~ in Liquid, vol.% 0 6.32 NC5 in Liquid, vol.% 0 6.16 1 3 1 ~260 TA~LE_Y
Sync~u~ PrDQ~$~ from San Ardo Çrude Deasphalt, San Ardo then This ~Crude Deasph~l~ Visbreak Vls-2~ak- InventiQ

Cs~ Yield 100 92 95 89 89 Visc., cs 100F11,000 (2000) (90) (120) ~32) CCR 8.7 - 13.9 8.8 4.7 V, ppm 73 54 77 52 13 Ni, ppm 69 50 73 50 17 ~ydrogen, wt% 10.9 11.2 10.9 11.2 11.3 Sulfur, wt%1.701.70 1.31 1.40 1.31 ( ) numbers estimated from ASTM Z11.39 blending chart.

Exam~les l~
Cold Lake Crude was visbroken at 820F by the procedure used in Example 1 and quenched after 1900 ERT. The coke make under these conditions was found to be 0.4 wt%; and, 38 wt% of the 1050F+ was converted to lower boiling material.
The liquid product was vacuum distilled to obtain a 650F+
liquid for deasphalting with both heptane (Example 13), and a very light naphtha stream, (Example 14). This naphtha stream boils between 35 and 60C and is available from Baker as Petroleum Ether. Chemically it is a mixture of Cs and C6 paraffins, containing about 75% nCs.
The final products were recombined to yield the pipelineable syncrude and an asphalt which could be burned to fulfill the thermal requirements for producing the heavy crude. The results are given in Table VI.
TA8LE V~
~yncrude ~LQm Col~ ~ke ~rude Example 13 Example 1 Visbroken Visbroken + Visbroken ~
Cold Lake Crude l90Q ~RT ~7 DEA Naphtha DEP
Product wt% of Crude 100 97 82 79 Vis., cs @ 100F3800 500 13 11 By-Products. w~4 bitumen 0 0 14 18 gas (C4-) 0 3 3 3 As shown by the results in Table VI, the naphtha was about equivalent to pure n-heptane in terms of yield and viscosity of the deasphalted product. This naphtha was used for deasphalting to demonstrate that pure paraffin solvents are not needed in the process of this invention. By using naphtha derived from the crude, or from the visbreaking process, or from natural gas liquids from nearby wells, for example, the need for a pure solvent is eliminated and solvent recovery is simplified by reducing or eliminating steam stripping to completely recover solvent from the deasphalted oil or asphalt. Small amounts of solvent left in the deasphalted oil would be pipelined with the crude. Solvent left in the asphalt would make it easier to pump and burn in a combustor.
Figure 2 gives the viscosity/temperature data for the crude, visbroken product, and deasphalted visbroken products described above. Also shown on this figure is ~he viscoRity specification for the Canadian pipeline. It can be seen that the processing combination of this invention produces a final syncrude that exceeds pipeline viscosity specification. In addition this syncrude is significantly lower in metals and CCR and somewhat S lower in sulfur and higher in hydrogen than the crude.
Because the syncrude exceeds pipelineable viscosity specification, it i8 estimated that it should be possible to visbreak and deasphalt only about 66~ of the crude and blend it with the unprocessed crude in order to produce a pipeline specification product.
It should be mentioned that although it is customary to refer to the solvent precipitate as asphalt, it is not suitable for use as a normal asphalt product. Thermally produced asphalt i9 of very low quality and would not meet specifications. It is assumed that any thermally derived asphalt would be used as fuel.

Claims (21)

1. Claim 1. A process for preparing a pipelineable and substantially upgraded syncrude from a heavy crude oil charac-terized by an API gravity of less than 20°, and by a measurable nickel and vanadium content, said process comprising:
   (a) thermally treating in a reactor at least the 650°F+
   fraction of the heavy crude oil under conditions of outlet temperature, time and reactor outlet pressure such that said oil is subjected to an equivalent residence time at (800°F) of 700 to about 3000 ERT seconds whereby forming a mixture of thermal syncrude and asphalt;
   (b) intimately mixing at least the 650°F+ fraction of said thermally treated crude oil with 3 to 10 parts by volume of a light paraffinic solvent, thereby forming a solution phase containing said thermal syncrude substantially free of asphalt and a separate immiscible asphalt phase;
   (c) separating said thermal syncrude solution from said asphalt phase; and, (d) recovering from said solution phase said substantially upgraded thermal syncrude.
2. Claim 2. The process described in Claim 1 wherein said outlet temperature is about 800° to about 900°F, said treatment time is about 0.5 minutes to about 50 minutes, and said reactor outlet pressure is 30 to about 500 psig.
3. Claim 3. The process described in Claim 1 wherein said equivalent residence time forms less than 2 wt% coke.
4. Claim 4. The process described in Claim 2 wherein said equivalent residence time forms less than 2 wt% coke.
5. Claim 5. The process described in Claim 1 wherein said paraffinic solvent boils within the range of 30° to about 200°F.
6. Claim 6. The process described in Claim 3 wherein said paraffinic solvent boils within the range of 30° to about 200°F.
7. Claim 7. The process described in Claim 4 wherein said paraffinic solvent boils within the range of 30° to about 200°F.
8. Claim 8. The process described in Claim 1 wherein said light paraffin solvent is provided by separation from said raw or thermally treated heavy crude oil or by separation from natural gas condensate or by combinations thereof.
9. Claim 9. The process described in Claim 5 wherein said light paraffin solvent is provided by separation from said raw or thermally treated heavy crude oil or by separation from natural gas condensate or by combinations thereof.
10. Claim 10. The process described in Claim 6 wherein said light paraffin solvent is provided by separation from said raw or thermally treated heavy crude oil or by separation from natural gas condensate or by combinations thereof.
11. Claim 11. The process described in Claim 7 wherein said light paraffin solvent is provided by separation from said raw or thermally treated heavy crude oil or by separation from natural gas condensate or by combinations thereof.
12. Claim 12. The process described in Claim 1 wherein said step of recovering substantially upgraded thermal syncrude from said solution comprises heating the solution above the pseudo-critical temperature and pressure of the solvent whereby forming a low density phase rich in solvent and an immiscible high density syncrude phase, and recovering said phase by gravity separation.
13. Claim 13. The process described in Claim 5 wherein said step of recovering substantially upgraded thermal syncrude from said solution comprises heating the solution above the pseudo-critical temperature and pressure of the solvent whereby forming a low density phase rich in solvent and an immiscible high density syncrude phase, and recovering said phase by gravity separation.
14. Claim 14. The process described in Claim 6 wherein said step of recovering substantially upgraded thermal syncrude from said solution comprises heating the solution above the pseudo-critical temperature and pressure of the solvent whereby forming a low density phase rich in solvent and an immiscible high density syncrude phase, and recovering said phase by gravity separation.
15. Claim 15. The process described in Claim 7 wherein said step of recovering substantially upgraded thermal syncrude from said solution comprises heating the solution above the pseudo-critical temperature and pressure of the solvent whereby forming a low density phase rich in solvent and an immiscible high density syncrude phase, and recovering said phase by gravity separation.
16. Claim 16. The thermal syncrude product formed by the process of Claim 5.
17. Claim 17. The product described by Claim 16 including 1 to 10 wt% of residual paraffinic solvent.
18. Claim 18. The thermal syncrude product formed by the process of Claim 6.
19. Claim 19. The product described by Claim 18 including 1 to 10 wt% of residual paraffinic solvent.
20. Claim 20. The thermal syncrude product formed by the process of Claim 7.
21. Claim 21. The product described by Claim 20 including 1 to 10 wt% of residual paraffinic solvent.