Patent ID: 7585406

Claim:
A process for hydroconverting a heavy hydrocarbonaceous feedstock comprising a catalyst to produce lower boiling hydrocarbon products, which process comprises the following steps: (a) Activation of the feedstock by adding modifiers and stabilizers; (b) Preparation of a catalyst complex comprising an emulsion of the pre-activated heavy hydrocarbons of step a), water and catalytic compounds; (c) Hydrogenation of the remaining activated heavy hydrocarbons in the presence of hydrogen gas and the emulsion of catalytic complex of step (b); (d) Fractionation of the products of step (c) as liquid-gas streams by means of atmospheric and/or vacuum distillation; (e) Returning the residues of the distillation process to the process of step (a) after separating the solid particle content; (f) Separation of catalyst elements from the solid particles, wherein said catalyst elements are recycled to a preliminary catalyst complex preparation unit.