The TRU� Process

TRU Oiltech has developed a new bitumen- heavy oil primary upgrading process. The process takes a heavy feedstock, introduces a proprietary reagent, and transforms the feedstock, at atmospheric pressure and mild temperature conditions, to ‘medium crude’ with a viscosity suitable for pipeline transportation.

Effectively, the process eliminates the need for adding diluent (dilbit) or synthetic crude oil (synbit) to bitumen in order to ship it via pipeline to a refinery.

Figure 6 - Heavy Oil Economics

The invention is a method of upgrading heavy crude oil (HCO), especially high sulphur HCO, via addition of proprietary distillable recyclable additive (DRA) to form an HCO-DRA mixture. The HCO-DRA mixture is then heated and distilled to form a lower density, lower acidity, ash-free distillate containing less sulphur having lower viscosity than the feed HCO and having lower olefin content than a distillate produced without DRA addition.

Figure 7 - The Process Flowsheet

TRULITE™ will be valued on delivery downstream to refineries that separate the synthetic product into major products used by consumers and industries worldwide.

Crude oil is made up of a mixture of hydrocarbons with different molecular arrangements. During the refining process, the different hydrocarbons are separated into groups or fractions, while impurities are removed.

The refining process is fairly simple. Crude oil is first boiled, allowing the lighter fractions to evaporate and then recondense in a process called distillation. As the different hydrocarbon components in crude oil have different boiling points, gradual heating and recondensing make it possible to separate the components.

Figure 8 - Refinery Processes

At a refinery, crude oil is heated and recondensed in a fractioning tower with special trays at intervals all the way up the tower to facilitate the separation process. When oil is heated, oil vapors rise up the tower before they cool down at different levels, turning back into liquid. Any oil that has not vaporized will flow down the tower.

The fractions with high boiling points will collect in the lower part of the tower, those with intermediate boiling points will collect in the middle, while those with low boiling points will condensate at a higher level. For example, the light fractions such as refinery gas, liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline and naphtha are taken off at the top of the tower, while the heaviest, like tar and asphalt, are drawn off at the bottom. The other fractions like kerosene and diesel are withdrawn from the middle of the tower.

As the various fractions condense and collect in the trays, they are piped off from each level of the tower. The various fractions may then be used directly as finished products or recombined to form other products.