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Abstract

Crude oils are normally so viscous that they cannot be pumped through pipelines without periodic heating. The usual practice is to pump the oil from one heat station to another, with part of the crude oil being used to generate heat. This problem is solved by reducing the viscosity of the crude oil. The viscosity reduction is effected using reactors for partially cracking crude oil, mixing the partially cracked oil with incoming crude oil, separating gases from the liquid in the mixture in a flash vessel, condensing the gases to yield liquid hydrocarbons, and mixing the latter with untreated crude oil and liquid residue from the flash vessel to yield a flowable, relatively low viscosity mixture. Coke produced in the reactors is periodically reacted with superheated steam to yield hydrogen, which is used to improve the quality of some of the residue from the flash residue. The thus treated flash vessel residue is used to feed the reactors.

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First Claim