Process for separating and converting heavy oil asphaltenes in a field location

Claim 1

A process for treating at least the relatively high boiling components of an asphaltenic viscous crude oil in a field location, in order to produce a pumpable liquid oil product, comprising: mixing the crude oil or its heavy ends with an asphaltene precipitating agent at least as effective for asphaltene precipitation as normal heptane and recovering at least a portion of the precipitated asphaltenic components of the crude oil; thermally converting the recovered asphaltenic components to non-viscous liquid asphaltenic conversion products by heating said recovered asphaltenic components at a pressure of from about one to three atmospheres for a time and temperature substantially as effective as heating said recovered asphaltenic components at substantially atmospheric pressure at from about 625° F. to 700° F. for from about one to three days; and mixing products of said conversion comprising the non-viscous liquid asphaltenic conversion products with at least the maltene components of the crude oil or its heavy ends from which asphaltenic components were precipitated in order to form a pumpable liquid oil product having a viscosity of no more than about 10,000 centipoise.