ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we give the reader a brief account of what we call "heavy petroleum fractions," 'their geometrically rising complexity with increasing boiling point, the limitations encountered in their analysis and even in their description, and the approaches to overcome or circumvent some of these limitations. This chapter may be seen as an overview of the subject matter dealt with in greater detail later and as an introduction to our philosophy and our conceptual approach to the compositional analysis of heavy petroleum fractions.
