ABSTRACT
Historically, petroleum and its derivatives have been known and used for millennia. Ancient workers recognized that certain derivatives of petroleum (asphalt) could be used for civic and decorative purposes, while others (naphtha) could provide certain advantages in warfare (Abraham, 1945; Pfeiffer, 1950; Van Nes and van Westen, 1951; Forbes, 1958a,b, 1959, 1964; Hoiberg, 1964; Speight, 2014a; Cobb and Goldwhite, 1995). Scientifically, petroleum is a carbonbased resource and is an extremely complex mixture of hydrocarbon compounds, usually with minor amounts of nitrogen-, oxygen-, and sulfur-containing compounds, as well as trace amounts of metal-containing compounds. Heavy oil is a subcategory of petroleum that contains a greater proportion of the higher-boiling constituents and heteroatom compounds. Tar sand bitumen is different to petroleum and heavy oil insofar as it cannot be recovered by any of the conventional (including enhanced recovery) methods (Speight, 2014a, 2015c). For the purposes of this book, residua (resids), heavy oil, extra heavy oil, and tar sand bitumen are (for convenience) included in the term “heavy feedstocks.”
