Methods are provided for removing bitumen from tar sands. One method may include contacting the tar sands with a hydrocarbon. The method may also include contacting the tar sands including the hydrocarbon with a water soluble silicate. The method may further include separating the tar sands into a liquid portion and a solid portion, the liquid portion including the water soluble silicate and the bitumen. The method may also include separating the water soluble silicate from the bitumen.

A system and method is provided for upgrading a continuously flowing process stream including heavy crude oil (HCO). A reactor receives the process stream in combination with water, at an inlet temperature within a range of about 60 C. to about 200 C. The reactor includes one or more process flow tubes having a combined length of about 30 times their aggregated transverse cross-sectional dimension, and progressively heats the process stream to an outlet temperature T(max)1 within a range of between about 260 C. to about 400 C. The reactor maintains the process stream at a pressure sufficient to ensure that it remains a single phase at T(max)1. A controller selectively adjusts the rate of flow of the process stream through the reactor to maintain a total residence time of greater than about 1 minute and less than about 25 minutes.

The invention provides a method for preparing fuel components from waste pyrolysis oil, comprising: providing a waste pyrolysis oil, comprising as the major part plastic pyrolysis oil and/or tyre pyrolysis oil, and comprising impurities in the form of chlorine, nitrogen, sulphur, and optionally silicone or bromide; purifying the waste pyrolysis oil by subjecting it to a hydrothermal treatment with water or alkaline water; separating the hydrothermally treated waste pyrolysis oil from the aqueous phase; preparing a hydroprocessing feed from the hydrothermally treated waste pyrolysis oil, optionally in mixture with one or more feed(s) of oxygen-containing biological oils having impurities of chlorine and silicon; hydroprocessing the hydroprocessing feed catalytically with hydrogen to cause hydrogenation, and optionally one or more of hydrodeoxygenation, hydrodesulfurisation, hydrodenitrification, hydrodechlorination, hydrodearomatization, and hydroisomerisation; recovering a hydrocarbon fraction boiling in the liquid fuel range.

Fines loading into a primary separation vessel is used to control oil sand ore feed rate and ore fines content to a water-based bitumen extraction plant comprising a slurry preparation unit and to also control the number of primary separation vessels in operation at a bitumen separation plant to minimize operation upsets/excursions and to optimize overall extraction performance.

Hydrocarbon-containing feedstocks are processed to produce useful intermediates or products, such as fuels. For example, systems are described that can process a petroleum-containing feedstock, such as oil sands, oil shale, tar sands, and other naturally-occurring and synthetic materials that include both hydrocarbon components and solid matter, to obtain a useful intermediate or product.

The invention relates to a method of separating and purifying products from a high pressure processing system adapted for processing a feed mixture comprising carbonaceous material(-s) at a pressure of from about 150 bar to about 400 bar and a temperature from about 300 C. to about 430 C. in the presence of homogeneous catalysts in the form of potassium and/or sodium in a concentration of at least 0.5% by weight and liquid organic compounds in a concentration from about 5% to about 40% by weight in a predefined time thereby producing a converted feed mixture, wherein the converted feed mixture is cooled to a temperature in the range 50 to 250 C., and depressurized to a pressure in the range 1 to 150 bar, and where the converted feed mixture is separated in to a gas phase comprising carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane, an oil phase comprising oil phase liquid organic compounds, and a water phase comprising water phase liquid organic compounds, dissolved salts and optionally suspended particles, where the water phase liquid organic compounds and dissolved homogenous catalysts in the form of potassium and/or sodium are at least partly recovered from said water phase thereby producing a first water phase stream enriched in water phase liquid organic compounds and homogeneous catalysts in the form of potassium and sodium, and a second water phase stream depleted in water phase liquid organic compounds and homogeneous catalysts in the form of potassium and sodium, where the first water phase is at least partly recycled to said the feed mixture to provide at least part of said liquid organic compounds and homogeneous catalysts in the feed mixture, and where further a bleed stream is withdrawn from said water phase enriched in water phase liquid organic compounds and homogeneous catalysts in the form of potassium and sodium prior to recycling said first recycle stream to the feed mixture.

The invention concerns a method (100) for recovering and/or recycling a bituminous product by means of pulsed power, the bituminous product comprising bitumen and elements to be separated, involving the following steps: supplying (101) a reactor (11) inside which at least two electrodes (13) extend with the bituminous product and a liquid medium of which at least one liquid component has Hansen solubility parameters , and d such that the bitumen is at least partially soluble in the liquid medium, the elements to be separated being insoluble, generating (102) a series of electromagnetic pulses between the electrodes (13) in the reactor (11) so as to produce, as a result of the power, the frequency and the switching time of the electromagnetic pulses, at least one shock wave and at least ultraviolet radiation, in such a way as to disperse and dissolve the bitumen in the liquid medium, and to separate the bitumen and the insoluble elements, the liquid medium preventing the reconstitution of the bitumen.

The present invention relates to an improved bitumen recovery process from oil sands. The oil sands may be surface mined and transported to a treatment area or may be treated directly by means of an in situ process of oil sand deposits that are located too deep for strip mining. Specifically, the present invention involves the step of treating oil sands with an ethylene oxide capped glycol ether described by the structure: RO(CH.sub.2CH(CH.sub.3)O).sub.m(C.sub.2H.sub.4O).sub.n, H wherein R is a linear, branched, cyclic alkyl, phenyl, or alkyl phenyl group of greater than 5 carbons and m and n are independently 1 to 3.

A steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) processing facility comprising: an oil/water separation process block operable for bulk separation of produced water from a produced fluid comprising produced water and hydrocarbons; a de-oiling process block operable to remove residual oil from the produced water separated from the produced fluid in the oil/water separation process block and provide a de-oiled water; a water treatment block operable to remove contaminants from the de-oiled water and provide a treated water; and a steam generation process block operable to produce steam from the treated water. In embodiments, each of the oil/water separation process block, the de-oiling process block, the water treatment process block, and the steam generation process block is modularized and comprises a plurality of modules. Methods for operating and assembling a SAGD processing facility are also provided.

A process for extracting crude oil from a solid, oil bearing diatomaceous earth. In the process includes the step (a) of mixing crude oil-bearing diatomaceous earthwith a heated solvent such as toluene to reduce the size of the oil-bearing diatomaceous earthand release crude oil into the solvent, step (b) of adding water to the size reduced solid and solvent mixture of step (a) to yield a mixture of crude oil+solvent+water+sized reduced diatomaceous earth, step (c) of passing the mixture of crude oil+solvent+water+sized reduced diatomaceous earthfrom step (b) through a cyclone separator to remove residual solids and to yield crude oil+solvent; and step (d) of passing the crude oil+solvent mixture of step (c) through a solvent stripper to remove solvent from the crude oil and to yield substantially diatomaceous earthand solvent free crude oil.