1. Processing Technologies

(3) Development of Technologies for Refining and Cracking Ultra-heavy Oils/Oil Sands

Use of oil sands and other unconventional heavy oils in Japan re-quires development of refining and cracking technologies that en-sure compliance with the most stringent quality regulations in the world. To help the situation, JPEC has been developing the technol-ogies for: i) substantially improving the properties of petroleum products of which the quality is deteriorated due to cracking of bitu-men(1) in cokers; ii) effectively reforming synthetic crude oils(2) which have a high aromatic content and a low cetane number; and iii) cracking and reforming which are based on novel high-pressure thermal cracking reactions for reducing and utilizing heavy frac-tions, or byproducts of cracking.

1. Highly-viscous, ultra-heavy oil recovered from oil sands, having a high sul-fur/metallic content
2. Crude oil to which preliminary reforming is applied after on-site cracking and upgrading of bitumen