Patent ID: 8568583

Claim:
A novel process configuration for converting of heavy oil or bitumen feedstocks to high value, transportable synthetic crude oil comprising: a) feeding bitumen or heavy oil feedstock having an API gravity less than 15°, sulfur content of greater than 3 weight percent and a vacuum residue content of greater than thirty five weight percent to an atmospheric fractionator to provide an atmospheric residue stream, a straight run atmospheric gas oil stream and a diluent stream: and b) feeding a portion of said atmospheric residue stream to a vacuum fractionator to create a vacuum residue stream and a straight run vacuum gas oil stream; and c) feeding the vacuum residue stream and some or none of the atmospheric residue stream that was not processed in the vacuum fractionator in step b), along with a hydrogen stream to an ebullated-bed reactor system to create an unconverted residue stream, a full range distillate product stream, and a recovered butanes stream; and d) blending the atmospheric residue stream that was not processed in the vacuum fractionator of step b) or the ebullated-bed reactor system of step c) with the unconverted residue from the ebullated-bed reactor system of step c); and e) blending the stream from step d) with the straight run atmospheric gas oil stream, straight run vacuum gas oil stream, the full range distillate product stream and the recovered butanes stream from the ebullated-bed reactor system to produce a transportable synthetic crude oil product having at least a 19° API gravity and a viscosity at 7° C. less than 400 cSt.