Patent analysis of SDA technology for heavy oil upgrading

Abstract

Non-conventional energy is considered as important future energy source, as conventional energy has limitation for its capacity. The demand on value added process in heavy oil/oil sand bitumen is increasing in particular. Solvent Deasphalting (SDA) process for Deasphalted Oil (DAO) is used as heavy oil upgrading process in existing refinery process. SDA process for heavy oil upgrading has been already commercialized by leading countries. SDA R&D projects have been carried out actively by those countries. In this study, patent analysis for SDA technology development was carried out. From 1970's, when SDA patents were applied, the patents in Korea, USA, Japan, Canada and Europe were searched and distributed to extraction, recovery, solvent and etc. 334 patents were selected relating to heavy oil upgrading SDA process. The application status of SDA process patents showed a tendency to increase slightly. The number of patent applied was USA patent 131 (39%), Canada patent 83 (25%), Japan patent 35 (11%) and Korea patent 6 (2%). It will be necessary for efficient use of energy resource to support SDA R&D by government.