Patent ID: 7736493

Claim:
A solvent deasphalting process, comprising: a) conducting an atmospheric resid to a vacuum distillation tower; b) retrieving a vacuum resid stream from the vacuum distillation tower; c) conducting a vacuum resid-containing stream comprised of at least a portion of the vacuum resid stream to a membrane separations unit wherein the vacuum resid-containing stream contacts a first side of at least one porous membrane element; d) retrieving a permeate product stream from the second side of the porous membrane element, wherein the permeate product stream is comprised of selective materials which pass through the porous membrane element from the first side of the porous membrane element to the second side of the porous membrane element; e) retrieving a retentate product stream from the first side of the porous membrane element; f) conducting at least a portion of the permeate product stream to a solvent deasphalting unit; and g) retrieving a deasphalted oil product stream from the solvent deasphalting unit; wherein the CCR wt % content of the permeate product stream is at least 20% lower than the CCR wt % content of the vacuum resid-containing stream, and the deasphalted oil product stream has a lower asphaltene wt % than said permeate product stream.