Processing of tar sands

Claim 1

In a process for upgrading tar sands by the combination of thermal distillation to recover a distillate material boiling below about 850° F. and gasification of residue hydrocarbonaceous material remaining with the sand recovered from the thermal distillation operation to produce fuel gas and high temperature streams of sand particles, air and steam transferable for use in the process combination, the improvement which comprises effecting thermal distillation of tar sand admixed with hot sand particles obtained from said gasification step under conditions to obtain a hydrocarbon product of end boiling point within the range of 650° F. to about 1000° F., passing sand with residual oily higher boiling hydrocarbon material from said thermal distillation operation to a solvent extraction operation maintained under conditions to remove said higher boiling hydrocarbons other than asphaltic type organic material by solvent extraction, passing sand with asphaltic type organic material separated from solvent extracted material to said gasification zone maintained under conditions to produce a fuel gas product and hot sand particles, recovering solvent with extracted higher boiling hydrocarbons and separating to recover solvent from said higher boiling hydrocarbons, and using the hot fuel gas product and sand obtained from said gasification operation to provide heat to the above identified combination of processing steps.