CA3108606A1 - Non-aqueous extraction and separation of bitumen from oil sands ore including deasphalting and washing stages - Google Patents

Abstract

Non-aqueous extraction (NAE) processes for producing bitumen from oil sands ore are described. The process can include subjecting the oil sands to a bitumen extraction stage, separating a solvent diluted bitumen material from a solvent diluted tailings material, subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a wash liquor and washed tailings, implementing two stages of solvent deasphalting in series, and supplying the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to the washing stage. The asphaltene material can be subjected to a solid-liquid separation stage to remove precipitated asphaltenes from solvent diluted bitumen and produce asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen that is then supplied to the washing stage. A stream containing paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil can be recycled to the extraction stage from the washing stage as a predominant source of paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil to assist in the extraction of bitumen.

Description

NON-AQUEOUS EXTRACTION AND SEPARATION OF BITUMEN FROM OIL SANDS
ORE INCLUDING DEASPHALTING AND WASHING STAGES
TECHNICAL FIELD
[001] The technical field generally relates to processing oil sands ore, and more particularly to techniques using paraffinic solvent to facilitate the extraction and separation of bitumen from mined oil sands.
BACKGROUND

[002] Conventional methods for the extraction of bitumen from oil sands rely on mixing the oil sands with water to form an aqueous slurry and then separating the slurry into fractions including bitumen froth and aqueous tailings. The bitumen froth is then treated to remove residual water and solids, while the aqueous tailings are stored in tailings ponds and/or subjected to further processing. Water-based extraction methods have various challenges related to water demand and processing requirements; energy requirements to heat aqueous streams to operating temperatures to facilitate extraction; as well as the production, handling and disposal of aqueous tailings materials.
SUMMARY

[003] In accordance with an aspect, there is provided a non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation threshold and under extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from the solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a wash liquor and washed tailings;
subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to a first solvent deasphalting stage to produce solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen and an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and residual solvent diluted bitumen;
subjecting the asphaltene material to a second solvent deasphalting stage to produce a second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen and a second asphaltene material comprising at least a portion of the precipitated asphaltenes and of the residual solvent diluted bitumen; and supplying the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to the washing stage.

[004] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the second asphaltene material to a solid-liquid separation stage to remove at least a portion of the precipitated asphaltenes from the residual solvent diluted bitumen to produce an asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and asphaltene-enriched tailings.

[005] In some implementations, the process further comprises combining at least a portion of the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen with the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to produce a combined solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen stream, and supplying the combined solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen stream to the washing stage.

[006] In some implementations, the process further comprises supplying the washed tailings and the asphaltene-enriched tailings to a tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

[007] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to solvent recovery to produce solvent recovered bitumen as a bitumen product stream and recovered solvent.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[008] In some implementations, the process further comprises supplying at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent to the washing stage as the paraffinic wash solvent.

[009] In some implementations, the process further comprises combining the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent with the solvent diluted bitumen as a first stage deasphalting solvent for the first solvent deasphalting stage.

[0010] In some implementations, the process further comprises combining the solvent wash liquor with the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent and with the solvent diluted bitumen as the first stage deasphalting solvent for the first solvent deasphalting stage.

[0011] In some implementations, the solid-liquid separation stage comprises filtering the asphaltene material to produce the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and the asphaltene-enriched tailings.

[0012] In some implementations, the first solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a first solvent deasphalting temperature ranging from about 100 C to about 130 C.

[0013] In some implementations, the first solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a first solvent deasphalting temperature ranging from about 110 C to about 125 C.

[0014] In some implementations, the first solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a first solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.5 and about 3.5.

[0015] In some implementations, the first solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a first solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.75 to about 3.25.

[0016] In some implementations, the first solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a first solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio of about 3.

[0017] In some implementations, the second solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a second solvent deasphalting temperature that is lower than the first solvent deasphalting temperature.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[0018] In some implementations, the second solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a second solvent deasphalting temperature ranging from about 50 C to about 70 C.

[0019] In some implementations, the second solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a second solvent deasphalting temperature ranging from about 55 C to about 65 C.

[0020] In some implementations, the second solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a second solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 15 and about 35.

[0021] In some implementations, the second solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a second solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 18 to about 30.

[0022] In some implementations, the asphaltene material has an asphaltene material temperature, and wherein the process further comprises supplying a quenching solvent to the asphaltene material to reduce the asphaltene material temperature and enable the second solvent deasphalting stage.

[0023] In some implementations, the oil sands is further contacted with deasphalted oil to increase the asphaltene precipitation threshold.

[0024] In some implementations, the deasphalted oil comprises at least a portion of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen from the first solvent deasphalting stage.

[0025] In some implementations, the deasphalted oil comprises partially deasphalted bitumen.

[0026] In some implementations, all of the paraffinic solvent that is added to the oil sands material in the bitumen extraction stage is from the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen.

[0027] In accordance with another aspect, there is provided a non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation threshold and under extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a solvent wash liquor and washed tailings;
subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to solvent deasphalting to produce solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen and an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and residual solvent diluted bitumen;
subjecting the asphaltene material to a solid-liquid separation stage to remove at least a portion of the precipitated asphaltenes from the residual solvent diluted bitumen to produce an asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and asphaltene-enriched tailings; and supplying the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen to the washing stage.

[0028] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the asphaltene-enriched tailings from the solid-liquid separation stage to drying separately from the washed tailings to produce dried asphaltene-enriched tailings.

[0029] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the washed tailings from the washing stage to tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

[0030] In some implementations, the process further comprises combining the dried asphaltene-enriched tailings and the solvent recovered tailings to produce combined dried tailings disposable as reclamation material.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[0031] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to solvent recovery to produce solvent recovered bitumen as a bitumen product and recovered solvent.

[0032] In some implementations, the process further comprises supplying at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent to the washing stage as the paraffinic wash solvent.

[0033] In some implementations, the process further comprises combining the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent with the solvent diluted bitumen as a deasphalting solvent for the solvent deasphalting.

[0034] In some implementations, the process further comprises combining the solvent wash liquor with the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent and with the solvent diluted bitumen as the deasphalting solvent for the solvent deasphalting.

[0035] In some implementations, the solid-liquid separation stage comprises filtering the asphaltene material to produce the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and the asphaltene-enriched tailings.

[0036] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 100 C to about 130 C.

[0037] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 110 C to about 125 C.

[0038] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.5 and about 3.5.

[0039] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.75 to about 3.25.

[0040] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio of about 3.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[0041] In some implementations, the asphaltene material has an asphaltene material temperature, and wherein the process further comprises supplying a quenching solvent to the asphaltene material to reduce the asphaltene material temperature prior to the solid-liquid separation stage.

[0042] In some implementations, the oil sands is further contacted with deasphalted oil to increase the asphaltene precipitation threshold.

[0043] In some implementations, he deasphalted oil comprises at least a portion of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen from the solvent deasphalting stage.

[0044] In some implementations, the deasphalted oil comprises partially deasphalted bitumen.

[0045] In some implementations, all of the paraffinic solvent that is added to the oil sands material in the bitumen extraction stage is from the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen.

[0046] In accordance with another aspect, there is provided a non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation threshold and under extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to solvent deasphalting to produce an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen;
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 combining the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to produce a combined solids stream;
subjecting the combined solids stream to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a solvent wash liquor and a washed tailings material comprising at least a portion of the precipitated asphaltenes; and recycling at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor to the bitumen extraction stage as a predominant source of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil.

[0047] In some implementations, combining the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to produce the combined solids stream is performed prior to subjecting the combined solids stream to a washing stage.

[0048] In some implementations, the process further comprises supplying the washed tailings to a tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

[0049] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to solvent recovery to produce solvent recovered bitumen as a bitumen product stream and recovered solvent.

[0050] In some implementations, the process further comprises supplying at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent to the washing stage as the paraffinic wash solvent.

[0051] In some implementations, the process further comprises combining the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent with the solvent diluted bitumen as a deasphalting solvent for the solvent deasphalting.

[0052] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 60 C to about 90 C.

[0053] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 70 C to about 80 C.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[0054] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.5 and about 3.

[0055] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.65 to about 2.80.

[0056] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio of about 2.75.

[0057] In some implementations, the deasphalted oil comprises partially deasphalted bitumen.

[0058] In some implementations, the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 70 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

[0059] In some implementations, the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 80 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

[0060] In some implementations, the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 90 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

[0061] In some implementations, the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 95 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

[0062] In some implementations, the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage is substantially all of the source of paraffinic solvent in the bitumen extraction stage.

[0063] In some implementations, the process further comprises recycling a portion of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to the extraction stage as an additional source of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[0064] In accordance with another aspect, there is provided a non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation threshold and under extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to solvent deasphalting to produce an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen;
supplying each one of the solvent diluted tailings material and the bottom asphaltene fraction as separate streams to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a solvent wash liquor and a washed tailings material comprising precipitated asphaltenes; and recycling at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor to the bitumen extraction stage as a predominant source of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil.

[0065] In some implementations, the process further comprises supplying the washed tailings to tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

[0066] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to solvent recovery to produce solvent recovered bitumen as a bitumen product stream and recovered solvent.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[0067] In some implementations, the process further comprises supplying at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent to the washing stage as the paraffinic wash solvent.

[0068] In some implementations, the process further comprises combining the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent with the solvent diluted bitumen as a deasphalting solvent for the solvent deasphalting.

[0069] In some implementations, the asphaltene material has an asphaltene material temperature, and wherein the process further comprises supplying a quenching solvent to the asphaltene material to reduce the asphaltene material temperature prior to being subjected to the washing stage.

[0070] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 100 C to about 130 C.

[0071] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 110 C to about 125 C.

[0072] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.5 and about 3.5.

[0073] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.75 to about 3.25.

[0074] In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio of about 3.

[0075] In some implementations, the deasphalted oil comprises partially deasphalted bitumen.

[0076] In some implementations, the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 70 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[0077] In some implementations, the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 80 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

[0078] In some implementations, the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 90 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

[0079] In some implementations, the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 95 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

[0080] In some implementations, the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage is substantially all of the source of paraffinic solvent in the bitumen extraction stage.

[0081] In some implementations, the process further comprises recycling a portion of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to the extraction stage as an additional source of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

[0082] In accordance with another aspect, there is provided a non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation threshold and under extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a solvent wash liquor and washed tailings;
subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to solvent deasphalting to produce solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen and an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and residual solvent diluted bitumen;
treating the asphaltene material to produce an asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen having a reduced concentration of precipitated asphaltenes compared to the asphaltene material, and asphaltene-enriched tailings; and supplying the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen to the washing stage.

[0083] In some implementations, treating the asphaltene material comprises subjecting the asphaltene material to a subsequent solvent deasphalting stage to produce a subsequent solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen as the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and a subsequent asphaltene material as the asphaltene-enriched tailings.

[0084] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the asphaltene-enriched tailings to a solid-liquid separation stage to produce a liquid phase that comprises residual asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and a solid phase that comprises solids and the precipitated asphaltenes.

[0085] In some implementations, the process further comprises combining the subsequent solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen and the liquid phase from the solid-liquid separation stage to produce a combined solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen stream, and supplying the combined solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen stream as the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen to the washing stage.

[0086] In some implementations, treating the asphaltene material comprises subjecting the asphaltene material to a solid-liquid separation stage to produce a liquid phase as the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and a solid phase that comprises solids and the precipitated asphaltenes as the asphaltene-enriched tailings.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[0087] In some implementations, the process further comprises supplying the washed tailings and the solid phase from the solid-liquid separation stage to a tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

[0088] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the asphaltene-enriched tailings to drying separately from the washed tailings to produce dried asphaltene-enriched tailings.

[0089] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the washed tailings from the washing stage to tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

[0090] In some implementations, the process further comprises combining the dried asphaltene-enriched tailings and the solvent recovered tailings to produce combined dried tailings disposable as reclamation material.

[0091] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to solvent recovery to produce solvent recovered bitumen as a bitumen product stream and recovered solvent.

[0092] In accordance with another aspect, there is provided a non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation threshold and under extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to solvent deasphalting to produce an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen;
subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a solvent wash liquor and a washed tailings material comprising at least a portion of the precipitated asphaltenes; and recycling at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor to the bitumen extraction stage as a predominant source of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil.

[0093] In some implementations, subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to the washing stage comprises combining the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to produce a combined solids stream that is supplied to the washing stage.

[0094] In some implementations, subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to the washing stage comprises supplying each one of the solvent diluted tailings material and the bottom asphaltene fraction as separate streams to the washing stage.

[0095] In some implementations, the process further comprises subjecting the oil sands material to ablation prior to the bitumen extraction stage to produce an ablated oil sands material, and the oil sands material comprises the ablated oil sands material.

[0096] In some implementations, the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is less than about 5 cm.

[0097] In some implementations, the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is less than about 2 cm.

[0098] In some implementations, the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is at least 2 times smaller than an initial lump diameter of the oil sand lumps initially present in the oil sands material.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[0099] In some implementations, the ablation stage comprises contacting the oil sands material with an ablation liquor to dissolve at least a portion of the bitumen of the oil sands material.

[00100] In some implementations, the ablation liquor comprises a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material from the bitumen extraction stage.

[00101] In some implementations, the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.25 and 4.

[00102] In some implementations, the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.25 and 2.

[00103] In some implementations, the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.5 and 2.

[00104] In some implementations, the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.5 and 1.5.

[00105] In some implementations, the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 1.5 and 2 for hexane as the paraffinic solvent.

[00106] In some implementations, the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained above 1.5 for hexane as the paraffinic solvent.

[00107] In some implementations, the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained sufficiently high to provide a fine mineral solids content below 0.5 wt%
in the solvent diluted bitumen material.

[00108] In some implementations, the paraffinic solvent comprises pentane.

[00109] In some implementations, the paraffinic solvent comprises hexane.

[00110] In some implementations, the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of pentane and hexane.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[00111] In some implementations, the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and other natural gas condensates.

[00112] In some implementations, the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and light or heavy gas oils.

[00113] In some implementations, the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and at least one non-condensable gas.

[00114] In some implementations, the bitumen extraction stage is performed in a counter-current arrangement.

[00115] In some implementations, the bitumen extraction stage is performed at about 25 C to about 80 C.

[00116] In some implementations, the bitumen extraction stage is performed at about 25 C to about 60 C.

[00117] In some implementations, the process further comprises providing inerting conditions to the bitumen extraction stage.

[00118] In some implementations, the process further comprises adding an additive to the solvent diluted bitumen to improve a settling rate of solids during the first solvent deasphalting stage.

[00119] In some implementations, the additive comprises formic acid or a flocculant.

[00120] In some implementations, the additive is supplied at a concentration of less than 5wt% relative to the solvent diluted bitumen.

[00121] Several innovative process aspects and configurations are described herein for NAE and separation of bitumen from oil sands and other bitumen-containing materials.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[00122] Fig 1 is a block diagram of a process for extracting bitumen from oil sands using paraffinic solvent and deasphalted hydrocarbons.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[00123] Fig 2 is a block diagram of a process for extracting bitumen from oil sands using paraffinic solvent and including an extraction stage and a solvent deasphalting stage where the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen is recycled back into the extraction stage.

[00124] Fig 3 is a block diagram of a process for producing bitumen from oil sands, the process including multistage extraction, a solvent deasphalting stage and a washing stage of the solvent diluted tailings from the multistage extraction.

[00125] Fig 4 is a block diagram of a process for producing bitumen from oil sands, the process including an ablation stage, an extraction stage, a solvent deasphalting stage, and a washing stage producing a wash liquor that is recycled to the extraction stage.

[00126] Fig 5 is a block diagram of a process for producing bitumen from oil sands, the process including an ablation stage, an extraction stage, first and second solvent deasphalting stages, a solid-liquid separation stage, and a washing stage.

[00127] Fig 6 is a block diagram of a process for producing bitumen from oil sands, the process including an ablation stage, an extraction stage, a solvent deasphalting stage, a solid-liquid separation stage, a washing stage, and a drying stage.

[00128] Fig 7 is a block diagram of a process for producing bitumen from oil sands, the process including an ablation stage, an extraction stage, a solvent deasphalting stage, and a washing stage producing a wash liquor that is recycled to the extraction stage.

[00129] Fig 8 is a block diagram of another process for producing bitumen from oil sands, the process including an ablation stage, an extraction stage, a solvent deasphalting stage, and a washing stage producing a wash liquor that is recycled to the extraction stage.

[00130] Fig 9 is an example of an extraction assembly for extracting bitumen from oil sands.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[00131] Techniques described herein leverage the use of paraffinic solvent to extract and separate bitumen from materials that include bitumen, mineral solids and water, such as Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 oil sands ore. Various implementations are configured for the extraction of bitumen from mined oil sands.

[00132] Non-aqueous extraction (NAE) of bitumen can be carried out using a low boiling point paraffinic solvent that has good solubility for bitumen extraction and allows easy separation from the bitumen after extraction. During extraction of bitumen from the oil sands, the paraffinic solvent can also be used at solvent-to-bitumen (S/B) ratios below asphaltene precipitation onset. Operating below asphaltene precipitation onset means that asphaltenes do not precipitate in the form of flocs or aggregates during the extraction stage. This can be facilitated by contacting the oil sands with a mixture of deasphalted bitumen and solvent during solvent extraction in order to increase the liquid-to-solids (US) ratio, expand the operating envelope by increasing the S/B ratio at onset, and avoid asphaltene precipitation during the extraction. Extraction can produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material, which are separated from each other. The solvent diluted bitumen material can then be subjected to solvent deasphalting to produce a solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen that, in turn, can in some cases be recycled back into the extraction stage as a source of the deasphalted bitumen and paraffinic solvent.

[00133] Various process configurations can be implemented to facilitate the separation of bitumen from mineral solids and water, where deasphalted bitumen and paraffinic solvent are used to aid separation. In general, the deasphalted bitumen and paraffinic solvent can be produced as a solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen from a deasphalting stage, and then used in an extraction stage to provide conditions that favour bitumen separation from the mineral solids and water while avoiding asphaltene precipitation.
Alternatively, the deasphalted bitumen and paraffinic solvent can be produced as a wash liquor from a washing stage performed downstream of the extraction stage. Part or all of the wash liquor can be recycled back into one or more points in the extraction stage, and the solvent and deasphalted bitumen added to the extraction stage can consist of the wash liquor or include the wash liquor as well as other solvent and/or deasphalted bitumen sources. The use of a stream that includes deasphalted bitumen and paraffinic solvent can leverage the deasphalting stage to provide desirable US ratios, S/B
ratios, overall solvent requirements, and favourable extraction and separation conditions for enhanced Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 performance. There are a number of configurations and aspects that can be used to treat various feed materials according to the techniques described herein.

[00134] Paraffinic solvents, which can also be referred to as aliphatic solvents, have relatively low boiling points compared to aromatic and naphthenic compounds with identical carbon numbers and have a lower tendency to keep fine inorganic solids such as clays suspended. Therefore, an NAE process that uses paraffinic solvents can facilitate the production of relatively clean diluted bitumen with low contents of inorganic solids and water. Inorganic solids are mainly present as sand, silt and clay in oil sands ore and the streams derived from oil sands. One challenge of using aliphatic solvents is the low overall recovery of bitumen extraction from oil sands as a result of asphaltene precipitation upon mixing of oil sands with these solvents. This issue can be mitigated by operating the extraction stage below asphaltene precipitation thresholds, which can be facilitated by adding deasphalted oil to the extraction stage. In one implementation, the process can include a solvent deasphalting stage and the resulting solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen can be used as the solvent-containing material that is supplied to the extraction stage. In another implementation, the process can include a washing stage, and the resulting wash liquor can be used as the solvent-containing material that is supplied to the extraction stage. The combination of partial deasphalting and recycling or reuse of at least a portion of the resulting deasphalted fluid facilitates operating the process at relatively low solvent-to-bitumen ratios as well as effective washing of the residual solids after extraction. On the other hand, using a wash liquor as a standalone solvent-containing material that is supplied to the extraction stage can contribute to reducing flowrates of liquid streams being supplied to the extraction stage and retrieved therefrom. In turn, reducing the flowrates of the liquid streams can contribute to reducing equipment size and operating costs.

[00135] With the imposition of new regulations on tailings management and water use in the oil sands industry, NAE processes have interesting potential for bitumen production.
Extraction of bitumen from oil sands using organic solvent reduces or eliminates the need for fresh water use and can produce dry tailings that may be reclaimed upon removal of residual solvent, thereby reducing or eliminating the need for tailing ponds.
The use of solvent also facilitates extraction of bitumen from challenging resources, such as medium Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 and low-grade oil sands as well as any oil sands that process poorly in hot water extraction, which is often not considered as economically viable ores for conventional processes.

[00136] NAE processes would ideally use a low-cost solvent that is effective at relatively low solvent contents, produces bitumen at a high yield and low fines content, and assures efficient solvent recovery. Some of the challenges involved in the development of a commercial scale NAE process relate to fines and clay removal as well as solvent recovery. Fine clay particles are suspended in the liquid extract and need to be removed from the final bitumen product. In addition, the gravitational forces of enhanced gravity settling particularly in cases where a non-paraffinic solvent is used for extraction may not be sufficiently effective in obtaining a final liquid product with adequately low solids content. Separation or removal of such fine particles from a diluted bitumen stream can be challenging for mixtures with high clay content after gravity settling.

[00137] Solvent recovery from the tailings sand after extraction can also be a complex process, particularly because of the large scale of the operations. Use of a light solvent may have a significant impact on the energy intensity and the complexity of the process by lowering the required temperatures for the solvent recovery operations.

[00138] In terms of NAE of bitumen from oil sands, paraffinic solvents have been proposed as a solvent for the extraction process. Clays can settle more efficiently in a paraffinic environment and a mixture of lighter paraffinic hydrocarbons is relatively low cost and easy to obtain, and can be recovered from the solids at relatively low temperatures. However, the tendency of paraffinic solvents to precipitate asphaltenes at higher SIB ratios can result in increased complexity of the processes using such solvents.
The proposed techniques presented herein facilitate the use of paraffinic solvent for extraction and separation of bitumen.

[00139] In the context of the present work, asphaltene precipitation is avoided at certain process stages by maintaining the ratio of the solvent to bitumen (S/B ratio) below the onset threshold for asphaltene precipitation. The separation process can also be performed in multiple stages and using a counter-current scheme to limit the impact of unwanted asphaltene rejection in any stage.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[00140] In particular, it was found that recycling deasphalted bitumen back into the extraction stage gave more than a simply additive effect with respect to increasing the asphaltene precipitation onset and thus provided notable enhancements in terms of process performance and efficiency. In addition, it was shown that deasphalting could effectively remove suspended solids from a solvent diluted bitumen stream even when little to no water was present. Therefore, the deasphalting stage can enable solids removal from the solvent diluted bitumen produced by a non-aqueous extraction stage, and then the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen can be recycled back into the extraction stage to raise the onset and enhance the extraction. Alternatively and as mentioned above, another strategy is to recycle the wash liquor from a downstream washing stage, which can facilitate reduction of the volume of the liquid streams being supplied to the extraction stage while still achieving the purpose of raising the onset of asphaltene precipitation and enhancing the extraction.

[00141] These various strategies for recycling streams containing deasphalted oil and solvent to the extraction stage widens the window of operation and facilitates operating the extraction while processing oil sands ore having variable composition (e.g., bitumen content) while maintaining adequate SIB ratios below precipitation onset. In addition to being controlled for maintaining asphaltenes below the precipitation onset, the SIB ratios can also be varied to achieve desired settling rates during solvent deasphalting and optional subsequent solid-liquid separation steps. Various options can be implemented to further treat the underflow from the solvent deasphalting, which can be subjected for instance to additional separation and washing steps using dedicated equipment or by being reintroduced at given points of the process, with the objective of producing dry tailings with low amounts of residual bitumen. Processes described herein can thus facilitate the production of a tailings material that is substantially dry and thus more easily disposable compared to wet tailings produced by conventional hot water extraction processes.
Basic paraffinic extraction process from oil sands

[00142] Referring to Fig 1, oil sands 10 that include bitumen, mineral solids and naturally occurring water can be supplied to a bitumen extraction stage 12 that uses both paraffinic solvent 14 and deasphalted oil 16 to produce solvent diluted tailings 18 and solvent diluted Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 bitumen 20. The deasphalted oil 16 facilitates a relatively high liquid-to-solids ratio to be present in the extraction stage 12, and this aids the extraction of bitumen from the mineral solids as well as the separation of the extracted bitumen from the solids while ensuring a low overall S/B ratio, where the bitumen (B) includes the bitumen in the oil sands ore and the deasphalted oil, and preventing or limiting asphaltene precipitation. The amount of deasphalted oil 16 provided during extraction can be manipulated based on desired liquid-to-solids ratios and the conditions to avoid asphaltene precipitation, which can depend on various factors, such as extraction temperature, type of paraffinic solvent, bitumen properties, and S/B ratio.

[00143] The paraffinic solvent 14 and the deasphalted oil 16 can be supplied to the extraction stage 12 from single sources and/or as a combined single stream that includes both components. Alternatively, the paraffinic solvent 14 and the deasphalted oil 16 could be provided as separate streams. The deasphalted oil 16 can be derived from the solvent diluted bitumen 20, for example, by processing solvent diluted bitumen 20 to remove at least some asphaltenes. It is also noted that the paraffinic solvent 14 and the deasphalted oil 16 can be obtained from various downstream sources, such as a solvent deasphalting stage or/and washing stage, and can be provided to the extraction stage 12 in the form of several streams that each include both solvent and deasphalted hydrocarbons in various proportions or as a single stream that includes both solvent and deasphalted hydrocarbons in various proportions. Thus, the paraffinic solvent 14 and the deasphalted oil 16 can be generated and supplied to the extraction stage 12 in various ways.

[00144] Turning to Fig 2, an implementation of the process is shown where the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the extraction 12 is derived from the solvent diluted bitumen 20 by supplying a first stream 22 of the solvent diluted bitumen 20 to a deasphalting stage 24 to produce a solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 that is recycled back into the extraction stage 12. In the solvent deasphalting stage 24, the first stream 22 of the solvent diluted bitumen 20 is contacted with additional deasphalting paraffinic solvent 28 to fully or partially deasphalt the bitumen that is in the solvent diluted bitumen 20. Asphaltenes precipitate and can be recovered from the deasphalting stage 24 as a bottom fraction including precipitated asphaltenes 30. A second stream 32 of the solvent diluted bitumen 20 can be diverted as a bitumen containing product stream and subjected Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 to further downstream processing, such as filtration and solvent recovery, to produce a final bitumen product. The stream 32 could be mixed with a portion of stream 26 to form a product stream. In addition, at least a part of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen can be subjected to solvent recovery 60 to produce a solvent recovered bitumen 64 and recovered solvent 62.

[00145] Referring now to Fig 3, another implementation of the process can include multiple extraction stages, e.g., a first extraction stage 34 and a second extraction stage 36, which make up the overall bitumen extraction stage 12 in Fig 1. In this two-stage arrangement, the oil sands 10 can be fed into the first extraction stage 34, which produces a first stage solvent diluted bitumen as the solvent diluted bitumen 20 and a first stage tailings 38 that contains mineral solids, water, solvent and remaining bitumen. The first stage tailings 38 can be fed into the second extraction stage 36 to enable further extraction of bitumen to produce a second stage tailings as the solvent diluted tailings 18 and a second stage solvent-bitumen stream 40. The second extraction stage 36 can receive the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 as the source of paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil, for example. The second stage solvent-bitumen stream 40, which includes deasphalted bitumen, extracted bitumen and paraffinic solvent, can then be used as the source of paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil for the first extraction stage 34. It is noted that the extraction operation could also have three or more stages.

[00146] The solvent diluted tailings 18 can be supplied to a washing stage 42 into which solvent wash 44 is supplied for removing residual bitumen from the mineral solids and producing washed tailings material 46. The washed tailings material 46 can then be sent to tailings solvent recovery 48 for producing tailings recovered solvent 50 and solvent recovered tailings 52. The washing stage 42 also produces a solvent wash liquor 54 that includes paraffinic solvent and bitumen that was removed from the tailings.
The solvent wash liquor 54, which contains relatively high levels of solvent, can be used in the deasphalting stage 24, e.g., by adding the solvent wash liquor 54 to the first portion 22 of the solvent diluted bitumen 20. In this case, the solvent wash liquor 54 can be the source of paraffinic solvent used for deasphalting. Depending on the operating conditions and the deasphalting level that is desired, additional solvent 28 can be added or the solvent wash liquor 54 can be the sole source of solvent for deasphalting. Alternatively and as will be Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 described in further detail below, the wash liquor 54 can be also be used as the source of deasphalted oil and paraffinic solvent for addition to the extraction stage 12.

[00147] This NAE process for extracting bitumen from oil sands can potentially operate at low S/B ratios, extract bitumen effectively, produce a liquid extract with low water and clay contents, and use a light aliphatic hydrocarbon as the solvent. One implementation of the process includes extraction of bitumen from oil sands using a recycled stream containing a mixture of paraffinic solvent and partially deasphalted bitumen.
The process facilitates a high US ratio particularly in the first stage of extraction. The process also enables high bitumen recovery, and operates at a low S/B ratio to prevent asphaltene precipitation in the extraction steps. While the process could be operated with varying degrees of mixing energy, the extraction process can be operated with mixing that is of lower intensity in which case the solvent diluted bitumen would have lower suspended fines content which could be removed more easily.

[00148] Still referring to Fig 3, this implementation will be described in further detail with respect to optional aspects and properties of the process. The extraction step can be conducted in multiple stages, e.g., two stages. In the first stage of extraction 34, oil sands are mixed with a recycled stream 40 from the second extraction stage 36, which can also be considered as a washing stage. The recycled stream 40 can be a mixture of one or more aliphatic solvents (e.g., pentane, hexane, or a mixture thereof) and partially deasphalted bitumen. A portion of the bitumen is extracted from the oil sands and the supernatant liquid from this stage will have a lower S/B ratio than the feed.
The product of the first extraction stage 34, which can be referred to as the solvent diluted bitumen material 20, is divided into two streams (e.g., equal in size) shown as 22 and 32 in Fig 3.
Stream 32 (e.g., half) can be viewed in this implementation as the product stream and is sent to fines removal and solvent recovery, while the other stream 22 (e.g., half) is recycled. Other proportions of streams 22 and 32 can be used, where stream 22 has a greater flow rate than 32 or vice versa. The use of the recycled deasphalted stream 26 rather than pure solvent can increase the asphaltene precipitation onset threshold, thereby avoiding asphaltene precipitation in the second extraction stage 36.
Furthermore, the recycled stream 40 also contains a certain amount of deasphalted oil and thus when introduced back into the first extraction stage 34, contributes to increasing the asphaltene Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 precipitation onset threshold. Asphaltene precipitation at this stage of extraction from the oil sands may negatively impact the bitumen recovery and the efficiency of the downstream process of solvent recovery from the solids.

[00149] Still referring to Fig 3, in some implementations, the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 and/or the recycled stream 40 can have an S/B ratio higher than the ratio required for asphaltene precipitation onset. As an example, the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 can have an S/B ratio of 2.5:1 or 3:1 or higher, for example when hexane is used as the paraffinic solvent. When different solvents and other operating parameters (e.g., temperature) are used, the S/B ratios can be different. The recycled stream 40 is produced by mixing the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 with the liquid entrained in the solids of the first stage tailings 38, and therefore the recycled stream 40 will include deasphalted oil, bitumen and solvent with an overall S/B ratio that is less than stream 26. Stream 20 will have still lower S/B ratios than the recycled stream 40, for example stream 20 could have an S/B ratio of 1:1 to 1.5:1, which are S/B
ratios that are volume based. In other implementations, the recycled stream 40 can also be formed by combining the asphaltene material 30 from the solvent deasphalting 24 with the liquid entrained in the solids of the first stage tailings 38, as will be detailed below.

[00150] Still referring to the implementation of Fig 3, the residual solids-rich phase (which can be referred to as first stage tailings 38) from the first extraction stage 34 is sent to the second extraction stage 36. There, the recycled stream (also referred to as the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26) from the deasphalting stage 24 with an aliphatic S/B ratio of ¨2.5 - 3:1 or higher (or lower) is mixed with the partially extracted sand from the first stage 34 to remove more bitumen from the sand in the second extraction stage 36. The tailings 18 or solids-rich phase of this second extraction stage 36 can be referred to as second stage tailings and can be sent to the washing stage 42. As mentioned above, it is also noted that the second stage of extraction could be referred to as an initial washing stage, as some washing can occur simultaneously with additional extraction.

[00151] In the washing stage 42, the sand and small amounts of residual bitumen can be washed by the equivalent of 1.5 times the original volume of bitumen in the oil sands or higher, for example. Washing can be performed in multiple stages and in some cases in a counter-current fashion. This extensive washing can facilitate removal of most of the Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 remaining oil in the solvent diluted tailings 18 to produce the washed tailings 46. As the entrained liquid in tailings stream 18 is already diluted by deasphalted oil, the residual bitumen would have a lower asphaltene content than the original bitumen.
Asphaltenes in the residual oil may precipitate in this washing process and the loss of yield in this washing stage may be in the range of 0 to 5 wt% (or 1 to 2 wt%, for example, depending on various factors, such as the bitumen content in ore, amount of entrained liquid in the solids, and the SIB ratio and it may vary significantly) of total bitumen, mainly in the form of precipitated asphaltenes. This asphaltene precipitation may represent 0 to 0.5 wt% of the solids. This would be in the range of the level of residual bitumen in the sand in any solvent extraction scheme and is not expected to significantly impact the solvent recovery process. The washed tailings 46, can be sent to tailings solvent recovery 48 to remove entrained and absorbed paraffinic solvent (e.g., hexane). The product of the washing stage 42 can be a diluted bitumen-in-solvent mixture that has been deasphalted, and may be referred to as the solvent wash liquor 54. Depending on how quickly the washing occurs and whether or not the liquid has gone through a settling stage, it may still contain some or most of the asphaltenes.

[00152] This solvent wash liquor 54 stream can be added to the solvent diluted bitumen that is to be deasphalted, i.e., to stream 22 shown in Fig 3. Mixing of the two streams 22 and 54 is intended to induce asphaltene precipitation, due to the relatively high solvent content of the solvent wash liquor 54. It is also noted that the deasphalting process effectively removes fine solids and connate water, which can contain high concentrations of chlorides, present in the solvent diluted bitumen produced in the first extraction stage 34. Asphaltene precipitation and rejection removes the emulsified water and fines, including clays, that may have been transferred to the solvent-bitumen mixture 54 as a result of extensive washing in the washing stage 42. In other words, the washing stage 42 can be performed under extensive or aggressive conditions to promote washing of residual bitumen from the tailings to enhance bitumen recovery, and if this leads to higher fines content in the solvent wash liquor 54 then the fines can be removed as part of the solvent deasphalting stage, resulting in overall low fines levels in the bitumen product. It is also noted that it may be desirable to minimize fines in the recycled stream 40 since high fines levels being recycled back to the first extraction stage 34 can reduce performance, and therefore the washing stage 42 can be conducted to produce a relatively Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 low fines wash liquor and/or the wash liquor 54 could be subjected to settling or other solids removal steps before recycling back to the extraction stage 34. The cleaned deasphalted product from this deasphalting process may be referred to as solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 and can be recycled to mix with the oil sands in the first and/or second extraction stages 34, 36, for example as illustrated in Fig 3. The solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 can also be subjected to solvent recovery 60 to produce a solvent recovered bitumen 64 and recovered solvent 62.

[00153] Implementations of this process have various advantages, some of which will be listed as follows. First, by incorporating recycling, a high US ratio in the first extraction stage is achieved while maintaining a low overall S/B ratio. Higher US ratios can provide conditions for enhanced extraction and separation of the bitumen from the mineral solids.
Second, recycling of a partially deasphalted mixture of aliphatic solvent and bitumen facilitates solubility of the whole bitumen (i.e., all bitumen sub-fractions including asphaltenes) in the solvent in the first extraction stage, i.e., no asphaltene precipitation occurs in the first stage. Third, a high US ratio in the extraction stages and extensive washing of the resulting tailings can facilitate achieving high bitumen recovery. Fourth, the use of a light paraffinic solvent could lower the energy requirements, and possibly the complexity and cost, of the solvent recovery process compared to extraction schemes that use less volatile solvents (e.g., naphtha) to avoid asphaltene precipitation.
Fifth, the bitumen product obtained from this process will have a lower viscosity, density, and chlorides than the original bitumen as a result of partial deasphalting.
Sixth, displacement of the extracted bitumen with a mixture of DAO/solvent mixtures lowers the asphaltene content of the entrained liquid in the tailings sent to the counter-current washing with pure solvent lowering the likelihood and amount of asphaltenes precipitated on the bulk sand thereby increasing the efficiency of the drying process. Seventh, recycling of a solvent wash liquor to the extraction stage can provide deasphalted oil to the extraction process to lower the onset of asphaltene precipitation without reintroducing a high volume of liquid into the extraction stage, which can have benefits in terms of equipment sizing, with smaller equipment enabling reductions in capital and operating costs.

[00154] In work directed to the process implementation shown in Fig 3, a focus was on the yield of recovered bitumen using a recycled deasphalted stream and the possibility of Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 obtaining a product with low levels of fines and emulsified water content.
Implementations of the process that were developed and tested have a number of features that may be attractive in the context of NAE of bitumen from oil sands. For example, the process implementation can be configured to operate at a volumetric SIB ratio of 1.5-2.0 (i.e.
approximately 1.0-1.3 mass ratio) in the first extraction stage, which is lower than many of the S/B ratios used in the paraffinic froth treatment. The process implementation can readily extract 90 - 95% of the bitumen in 15 minutes. The process implementation can also use a cheap and readily available solvent such as natural gas condensates. Some of this solvent may be left in the produced bitumen for pipelining. This simplifies the process of solvent recovery from the bitumen. The process implementation can use a relatively light solvent, such as heptane, hexane, pentane, or an equivalent mixture, thereby lowering the energy requirements for solvent recovery from the sand. The process implementation can produce a bitumen product with lower fines (including clay) and water contents by gravity settling only. The process implementation can also lower the diluent addition requirements for pipelining the bitumen as a result of partial deasphalting, which decreases viscosity and density of the product.

[00155] One challenge associated with the development of technologies in this area is related to solvent and inorganic fines management. The process implementation described above can be viewed as advantageous over most available processes in dealing with fines management because of the use of a paraffinic solvent and this can facilitate commercialization. Furthermore, recovery of paraffinic solvents is less challenging as a result of the relatively low boiling point of these materials compared to various other hydrocarbon solvents. The yield and process complexity issues associated with the use of paraffinic solvents are also addressed by the implementation of partial deasphalting.

[00156] It is noted that, in some implementations, various streams can be used as at least part of the deasphalted material that is supplied into the extraction stage to increase precipitation onset thresholds. The main example presented above is the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen stream that is the product of the solvent deasphalting stage. It is also noted that downstream fractions of the bitumen can also be recycled and used to increase precipitation onset thresholds. For instance, distillate fractions of bitumen or deasphalted Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 oil (e.g., light or heavy gas oils) can increase the asphaltene precipitation solvent/oil ratio and therefore could be used as long as the solvent can induce asphaltene precipitation from bitumen at a reasonably low SIB ratio. Thus, the deasphalted bitumen that is obtained from the process can be further processed, for example in a fractionation tower, and one or more distillate fractions can be recycled back as a deasphalted material to increase precipitation onset thresholds in the extraction stage.

[00157] In some implementations and as illustrated in Fig 4, the extraction stage 12 can be preceded by an ablation stage 6. Ablation can refer to the digestion and disintegration of oil sands lumps of the oil sands ore into more grain-sized material. A
grain-sized material can refer to a mixture of dispersed sands and clay and some fragments of ore having a diameter that is less than approximately 5 cm, or less than approximately 2 cm, or less than 1cm. Partial ablation can also occur, in which case a mixture of grain-sized material and fragmented lumps that are 2 to 10 times smaller than the size of the lumps initially present in the oil sands ore is produced. In addition, before being fed into the ablation stage 6, the oil sands feed 10 can be inerted to displace and remove oxygen therefrom.

[00158] The ablation stage 6 performed in the context of an NAE process can produce two phases, i.e., a first phase that includes mainly bitumen dissolved in solvent, and a second phase that includes mainly solids, the first and second phase forming together the ablated ore 8. The formation of these two phases is different than conventional water-based oil sands ablation and extraction processes in which three phases are formed, i.e., a first phase made of bitumen froth, which corresponds to a mixture of bitumen, air, and some fines; a second phase that includes mainly mineral solids; and a third phase that includes mainly water. Three main mechanisms can be considered to be involved in the ablation: dissolution ablation, shear ablation and mechanical ablation.
Dissolution ablation refers to a size reduction by dissolution of bitumen into solvent, which plays a notable role in the disintegration and digestion of ore lumps. Shear ablation refers to a size reduction due to internal movement of bitumen inside of a lump, resulting in loss of macroscopic layers of the lump. Heating of the lumps with the solvent can contribute to decreasing the viscosity of bitumen within the lumps, which in turn can accelerate the peeling ablation.
Mechanical ablation is due to attrition forces and impact forces resulting from the contact Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 of a lump with other lumps, with the mechanical components in the ablation unit and/or with the walls of the ablation unit in which ablation is being performed.

[00159] The ablation stage 6 is thus configured to reduce the size of the ore lumps that are supplied thereto. The ore lumps can have for instance a diameter of less about 50 cm, or less than 25 cm, or less than 20 cm, or less than 15 cm, or less than 10 cm, and can be reduced to fragments of ore having a diameter that is less than approximately 5 cm, or less than 2 cm, or less than 1 cm. These diameters are given for example only, to illustrate the degree of digestion to which the ore lumps can be subjected.

[00160] In the ablation unit, ore lumps are mixed with a solvent 4, which can be referred to as an ablation liquor, to produce the ablated ore 8. The ablation liquor can include for instance an aliphatic solvent, such as cyclohexane or cyclopentane or cycloheptane, natural gas condensate, or a paraffinic solvent, e.g., pentane, hexane, heptane, iso-pentane, iso-hexane, iso-heptane, or mixtures thereof. In some implementations, the ablation liquor can include pure solvent or recovered solvent from a solvent recovery unit.
The ablation liquor can also be a mixture of solvent and bitumen that is recycled from a downstream stage of the NAE process. The bitumen present in the ablation liquor can take the form of partially deasphalted bitumen when coming from a downstream stage where the bitumen has been in contact with a paraffinic solvent. For instance, Fig 4 illustrates an implementation where the ablation liquor includes a recycled stream 9 from the extraction stage 12. When the extraction stage 12 includes multiple extraction stages, the recycled stream 9 can be from an early stage of the extraction stages, or from a late stage of the extraction stages, or from any stage in between. The choice of the extraction stage from which is derived the recycled stream 9 when the extraction stage includes multiple extraction stages can depend on the desired composition of the ablation liquor, for instance in terms of solvent content or deasphalted oil content. In some implementations, the ablation liquor can also include a recycled stream derived from the solvent diluted bitumen 22 produced during the extraction stage 12.

[00161] When the ablation liquor includes a mixture of solvent and bitumen from a downstream extraction stage, the ablation liquor can optionally be subjected to a solid-liquid separation to remove solids therefrom prior to being mixed with the oil sands 10, to avoid reintroducing mineral solids into the process. The presence of partially deasphalted Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 bitumen in the ablation liquor can contribute to improving the solubility of bitumen in the ablation liquor and can also enable adjusting the S/B ratio to limit or avoid precipitation of asphaltenes in the ablation unit. The ratio of ablation liquor to ore within the ablation unit can range for instance from 0.25:1 to 3:1. When the ablation liquor includes a paraffinic solvent, the solvent-to-ore ratio or the S/B ratio can be controlled so as to remain within in a range that enables avoiding asphaltenes precipitation, i.e., a solvent-to-ore ratio or a S/B ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation onset.

[00162] The oil sands 10 can also be crushed and sized prior to being supplied to the ablation stage 6, using any type of dry crushing and dry sizing methods with or without screens to remove lumps that are larger than a given ore lump size. In some implementations, the crushing and sizing of the oil sands is performed dry in the sense that no water or solvent is added during the crushing and sizing stages.
Alternatively, the crushing and/or sizing may be done with the addition of small amounts of solvent, which can be referred to as wet crushing. The wet crushing can produce smaller lump size ranges than dry crushing, which can help ablation. Following the crushing and sizing, an ore feeding system can be provided to store and transfer the crushed ore to the ablation stage 6. The ore preparation system can be configured for replacing interstitial oxygen in the bed of ore lumps with an inert gas to reduce the oxygen concentration to less than 5%, less than 2%, or less than 1%. Replacing the interstitial oxygen with an inert gas, which can be referred to as deoxygenation of ore, can limit the ingress of oxygen to the ablation stage 6 or the extraction stage 12, which in turn can prevent flammable conditions within the ablation stage 6 and the extraction stage 12. The inerting gas can be any type of gas, such as but limited to, nitrogen and natural gas.

[00163] Regarding the extraction stage 12, it can be a single stage extraction or a multistage extraction. The multistage extraction, which can optionally be preceded by an ablation stage 6, provides a configuration where a mixture of deasphalted oil and solvent, such as partially deasphalted bitumen and solvent, can be added to a solids-containing bitumen material from an upstream stage to displace entrained liquid in the sands and provide washing functionality prior to the washing stages in which the tailings can be washed counter-currently with substantially pure solvent. The mixture of deasphalted oil and solvent, such as partially deasphalted bitumen and solvent, can be from various Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 sources, such as the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26, a recycle stream from a downstream extraction stage, such as the recycled stream 40 shown in Fig 3, or the wash liquor 54.

[00164] It is also noted that the ablation stage 6 and the extraction stage 12 can be performed as a combined unit instead of being performed as distinct units of the NAE
process. Combining units such as the ablation unit and the extraction unit can contribute to reducing overall capital and operating costs and reducing process complexity. Thus, in some implementations, the ablation unit can be integral with the equipment used for at least part of the extraction stage, or the ablation unit can be a distinct piece of equipment from the one used for the extraction stage. When the ablation unit is part of the same equipment as the extraction unit, the ablation section can be designed and operated differently compared to the extraction section, e.g., with different mixing conditions, inputs and sizing of equipment components.
Implementations with process integrations for bitumen production

[00165] Various process configurations and implementations can be envisioned where paraffinic solvent is used, optionally along with deasphalted oil, for the extraction of bitumen from oil sands. Certain process implementations involve integration strategies for leveraging different process features to enhance product quality, reduce energy requirements, lower solvent demand, and/or provide other enhancements to the NAE
process.

[00166] Below is a brief summary of certain relevant steps that form part of the example implementations shown in Figs 5-8:
= Ore preparation ¨ Oil sands ore is sized, inerted (oxygen removed) and mixed with solvent diluted bitumen with a controlled S/B ratio to prevent precipitation in the ablation unit. Inerting enables safe management of volatile and flammable solvent and can avoid the formation of explosive solvent mixtures with air.
= Bitumen extraction ¨ In the extraction stage, the ablated ore is mixed with a source of paraffinic solvent and optionally deasphalted oil, for instance counter-currently, Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 for a sufficient period of time to extract bitumen from the oil sands and enable some washing of the bitumen from the oil sands.
= Solvent deasphalting (SDA) ¨ The solvent diluted bitumen from the extraction stage is then mixed with a paraffinic solvent to perform solvent deasphalting and produce a solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen that meets certain specifications and from which solvent can subsequently be recovered and a bitumen product can be produced.
= Filtration and washing ¨ The solvent diluted tailings from the extraction stage is subjected to washing, and the asphaltene material from the solvent deasphalting can be further drained to recover residual bitumen and solvent and produce a cake material.
= Tailings solvent recovery (or sand solvent recovery) ¨ Solvent can be recovered from the solids (e.g., cake) material by various drying techniques and recycled for further bitumen extraction. Steam stripping, rotary drying and microwave drying are examples of techniques that can be used to recover solvent from the solids material. The "dry tailings" that are produced have a very low solvent and bitumen content, and can be back hauled to the mine for deposition and reclamation.

[00167] More specific implementations will now be described with reference to Figs 5-8 in the following sections.

[00168] With reference to Fig 5, an implementation of an NAE process will now be described in further detail. The NAE process shown in Fig 5 includes an ablation stage 6, an extraction stage 12, a washing stage 42, a two-stage solvent deasphalting phase 24, 25, a solid-liquid separation stage 33, as well as solvent recovery stages 48, 60. The oil sands 10 is supplied to the ablation stage 6 and mixed with an ablation liquor. In the implementation shown in Fig 5, the ablation liquor includes a recycle stream 9 from the extraction stage 12, and can include solvent diluted bitumen 22. The solvent diluted bitumen 22 (which can also be referred to as "solbit") is mainly composed of a mixture of solvent and bitumen with some partially deasphalted bitumen due to the input of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26, as well as a residual amount of water and mineral Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 solids, mainly as fines. The water present in the solvent diluted bitumen can include connate water initially present in the oil sands, and emulsified water coming from environmental contamination, such as rain. As mentioned above, the ratio of ablation liquor to ore during the ablation stage can be within the range of 0.5:1 to 3:1, and can generally be chosen such that asphaltene precipitation is avoided.

[00169] The ablated ore 8 is then supplied to the extraction stage 12, which produces the solvent diluted bitumen 22 as an overflow stream, and solvent diluted tailings 18 as an underflow stream. An inert gas 20 can be supplied to the extraction stage 12 to inert the ablated ore by displacing and removing oxygen therefrom if needed, or to create and maintain a positive pressure environment to keep preventing air ingress and maintain a low oxygen environment. On the other hand, it is noted that once an inert gas 20 has been supplied to the ablation stage 6, the addition of an inert gas to the extraction stage 12 can be omitted, for instance when the combination of the ablation stage 6 and the extraction stage 12 is a substantially sealed system. In such scenario, the inert gas can be added to the extraction stage 12 to maintain a low oxygen environment. A sweep gas, such as natural gas, can also be introduced into the sealed system. As mentioned above, the solvent diluted bitumen 22 is a mixture of solvent and bitumen with some partially deasphalted bitumen due to the input of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26, with a relatively low solids content and water content. The solvent diluted tailings 18 is composed mainly of mineral solids, and also includes water, solvent and residual bitumen.

[00170] The extraction stage 12 can be performed using an extractor or an extraction assembly that includes a "log washer" as described in detail in Canadian application No.
3,051,780, which is incorporated herein by reference, although various other extractor vessels can be used. Briefly, the extraction assembly can include at least one rotating element received in an extractor trough and that rotates about its longitudinal axis, the rotating element including a longitudinal shaft and elements extending outwardly from the longitudinal shaft to provide high mixing energy while advancing the solids along the extractor trough, to facilitate digestion and extraction of bitumen from the oil sands ore 10.
The bed of solids is moved along the extractor trough in one direction by the rotating elements, while liquid solbit layer above the bed moves counter-currently with respect to the bed and can be recovered as overflow from the extractor trough. The extraction Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 assembly can also include an inclined classifier assembly having a lower upstream end fluidly connected to the downstream end of the extractor trough. The classifier assembly includes at least one auger that receives the solids advanced by the log washer and transports the solids upwardly while a solvent-containing stream is added into an upper part of the classifier assembly to enable back drainage and washing of the solids prior to discharge as solvent diluted tailings 18. The solvent-containing stream added to the classifier drains downward as it dissolves bitumen and then forms part of the liquid solbit layer that moves through the extractor trough. It is noted that the above description of the extraction assembly is only one example of possible extraction assemblies that can be implemented to perform the extraction stage 12, of which an illustration is shown in Fig 9, and that any one of the embodiments of an extractor for as described in Canadian application No. 3,051,780 can be implemented as part of the extraction stage 12, as well as any other assembly enabling the extraction of bitumen from oil sands implementable in the context of NAE processes. Overall, the extraction stage 12 is configured to enable some digestion of the ore, extraction of the bitumen from the mineral solids, and separation of solvent and bitumen from the mineral solids. In some implementations, the extraction stage 12 can be implemented in a single unit or in multiple distinct units that may be arranged in series.

[00171] The equipment for performing the extraction stage 12 can include inlets and outlets to enable the addition of the oil sands, solvent and deasphalted bitumen as well as the removal of the solvent diluted bitumen stream and the solvent diluted tailings stream.
The solvent diluted bitumen stream 22 and the solvent diluted tailings stream 18 can be removed as overflow and underflow streams, respectively, but various other arrangements are also possible. The inlets and outlets of the equipment for performing the extraction stage 12 can be provided and located depending to the equipment design. The extraction stage 12 can also be operated so that the oil sands and the solvating mixture are mixed with sufficient energy and for a sufficient period of time to extract at least 90% of the bitumen or at least 91%, 92%, 93%, 94% or 95%, by weight, of the bitumen. The shear and mixing can also be provided in order to mitigate the suspension of fines in the solvent diluted bitumen.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[00172] A solvent-containing stream is supplied to the extraction stage 12 to dilute the ablated ore 8 and promote extraction and separation of the bitumen from the mineral solids. As mentioned above, an inert gas 20 is also delivered to the extraction stage 12 and associated units to displace oxygen and maintain pressure to prevent in-leakage. The solvent-containing stream includes a hydrocarbon solvent that is selected to be more volatile than the bitumen to facilitate downstream separation and recovery of the solvent, and can include for instance a paraffinic solvent. The solvent-containing stream can also be selected such that asphaltene precipitation is avoided during extraction.
In some implementations the solvent-containing stream can be derived from one or more downstream units and can include a predominant portion of solvent and a portion of deasphalted oil, such as partially deasphalted bitumen. In the implementation shown in Fig 5, the solvent-containing stream includes solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 that is produced by a downstream solvent deasphalting stage 24. The presence of deasphalted oil such as partially deasphalted bitumen in the solvent-containing stream being supplied to the extraction stage 12 enables increasing the onset threshold of asphaltene precipitation.

[00173] As mentioned above, the solvent diluted bitumen 22 can be removed from the extraction stage 12 as an overflow stream that is mainly composed of bitumen, solvent and a small amount of water and solids. The solvent diluted tailings 18 can be removed from the extraction stage 12 as a slurry or solid material that mainly contains mineral solids, water, solvents and bitumen. The solvent diluted tailings 18 can have fluidity to be pumpable to the subsequent processing stage, or they can be mixed with a liquid for dilution to provide sufficient fluidity.

[00174] Operating parameters of the extraction stage 12 can be controlled in order to increase the solids content or other contaminants content in the solvent diluted tailings 18, so that that solvent diluted bitumen 22 has a reduced solids content, which in turn can facilitate operation of downstream units such as those forming the solvent deasphalting stage 24 and improve their performance. Examples of operating parameters that can be controlled to influence the amount of solids rejection during the extraction stage 12 can include the rotation per minute (RPM) of the blades of the extraction assembly as well as their design and pitch (e.g., for a log washer type extractor), and the counter-current rates Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 of the solvent-containing stream and of the ablated ore 8 being supplied to the extraction stage 12.

[00175] After the extraction stage 12, the solvent diluted bitumen 22 can be heated to reach certain conditions of temperature and pressure, and can then be mixed with additional paraffinic solvent to achieve a given S/B ratio before being fed to the solvent deasphalting stage 24, in which a controlled deasphalting process takes place to meet desired product specifications. In some cases, the solvent diluted bitumen 22 can be heated before adding the paraffinic solvent to ensure that little to no precipitated asphaltenes are present in the fluid to reduce the risk of fouling issues. In this regard, the extraction stage 12 can be operated and controlled so that the S/B ratio of the solvent diluted bitumen 22 is low enough to avoid asphaltene precipitation upon heating to a higher temperature, since heating can induce precipitation at certain S/B ratios.

[00176] The solvent deasphalting stage 24 is configured to precipitate asphaltenes from the solvent diluted bitumen 22, while simultaneously removing fine solids that are present in the solvent diluted bitumen 22. In some implementations, the solvent deasphalting stage 24 facilitates production of a bitumen product that contains less than 0.5 wt%, or less than about 300wppm, of bottom sediment and water (BS&W), resulting in a higher value, pipelineable product and requiring less diluent than straight bitumen.

[00177] Controlling the temperature of the solvent diluted bitumen 22 and the S/B ratio of the feed to the solvent deasphalting stage 24 contributes to enabling the solvent deasphalting stage 24 to produce a solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 that meets desired product specifications. Furthermore, the solvent deasphalting stage 24 can be operated within a given temperature range and S/B range to achieve a target settling rate, which in turn affects process throughput and equipment sizing. The bitumen product specification can include variables such as the content of mineral solids, e.g., fines, water content, and chlorides. In the implementation shown in Fig 5, the solvent diluted bitumen can be heated for instance to a temperature ranging from about 100 C to 130 C, and can be mixed with additional solvent to achieve a S/B ratio ranging from 2.75:1 to 3.25:1. In an optional embodiment of the process shown in Fig 5, the solvent diluted bitumen can be heated to a temperature of about 120 C, and mixed with additional solvent to achieve a S/B ratio of about 3:1. Increasing the temperature of the solvent diluted bitumen 22 and Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 the temperature at which the solvent deasphalting stage 24 is operated can facilitate achieving higher settling rates of the solids and thus facilitate removal of solids from the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 that will be processed into the bitumen product.
Controlling the S/B ratio is also performed to achieve improvements in the settling rates during the solvent deasphalting stage 24.

[00178] The solvent used for adjusting the S/B ratio of the solvent diluted bitumen 22 can be from various sources, such as recycled solvent from another part of the NAE
process.
In the implementation shown in Fig 5, the solvent used for adjustment of the S/B ratio of the solvent diluted bitumen 22 prior to being supplied to the solvent deasphalting stage 24 is recycled solvent from a downstream solvent recovery unit 60 and/or tailings solvent recovery unit 48 that are used to form solvent storage 61. Make-up solvent 63 can also be added to the solvent storage 61. A portion of the wash liquor 54 from the washing stage 42 can also be used to help adjust the S/B ratio of the solvent diluted bitumen 22, either alone or combined with the recycled solvent from the solvent storage 61.

[00179] The solvent deasphalting stage 24 can be performed using various equipment.
For instance, the solvent deasphalting stage 24 can include a gravity settler, a centrifuge, or a hydrocyclone. The solvent deasphalting stage 24 produces the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 as described above as an overflow stream, and an asphaltene material 30 as an underflow stream. The asphaltene material 30 mainly contains solids, which include mineral solids and precipitated asphaltenes, residual bitumen, solvent and water. The asphaltene material 30 can be sent to the washing stage 42 either directly or following combination with the solvent diluted tailings 18 from the extraction stage 12, to further recover bitumen and solvent therefrom. Alternatively, the asphaltene material 30 can be treated separately to recover residual bitumen therefrom and removed solids, before being subjecting the resulting tailings to drying and solvent recovery.
For instance, the asphaltene material 30 can be treated in a separate unit, such as a filter with wash or a centrifuge, and/or can be subjected to a second stage of solvent deasphalting 25. This aspect will be discussed in further detail below.

[00180] Still referring to Fig 5 and turning back to the extraction stage 12, the solvent diluted tailings 18 are supplied to a washing stage 42. The washing stage 12 of the implementation shown in Fig 5 is similar to the washing stage 42 of the implementation Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 shown in Fig 3. A washing solvent 44 is supplied to the washing stage 42 to be combined with the solvent diluted tailings 18 for removing residual bitumen from the mineral solids and producing washed tailings 46 and a wash liquor 54. The wash liquor 54 includes paraffinic solvent and bitumen that was removed from the tailings. The wash liquor 54 can also be referred to as wash solbit. In the implementation shown in Fig 5, the wash liquor 54 is combined with the solvent diluted bitumen 22 and with a portion of solvent 44 from the solvent storage 61, i.e., a portion of the washing solvent, to be supplied to the solvent deasphalting stage 24, and thus contribute to adjusting the SIB ratio of the solvent diluted bitumen 22 being fed to the solvent deasphalting stage 24. In some implementations, the wash liquor 54 can be first combined directly with the solvent diluted bitumen 22, and then the combination of the wash liquor 54 and the solvent diluted bitumen 22 can be combined with solvent 44 from the solvent storage 61 to adjust the S/B ratio. In some implementations, the addition of the wash liquor 54 to the solvent diluted bitumen 22 prior to the solvent 44 can contribute to reduce the viscosity of the solvent diluted bitumen 22, which can facilitate subsequent mixing with the solvent 44, which can have a higher solvent than the wash liquor 54.

[00181] In the implementation shown in Fig 5, the asphaltene material 30 from the solvent deasphalting stage 24 is supplied to a second solvent deasphalting stage 25 to further recover bitumen therefrom. The second solvent deasphalting stage 25 produces a second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 27 and a second asphaltene material 31.
The second asphaltene material 31, which includes mineral solids, precipitated asphaltenes and residual bitumen, can then be subjected to a solid-liquid separation 33 to produce a liquid phase and a solid phase, such that the solids and precipitated asphaltenes can be removed from the liquid phase that includes solvent and bitumen. The liquid-solid separation 33 can be performed for instance in a filter, in which scenario the solid-liquid separation produces a filtered tailings 35 and a filtrate 29, as shown in Fig 5. The filtrate 29 includes residual deasphalted bitumen dissolved in solvent, and can be combined with the overflow from the second solvent deasphalting stage 25, which also includes deasphalted bitumen dissolved in solvent. The combined stream of second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 27 and the filtrate 29, forming a combined solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen stream 76, can then be reintroduced into the NAE process, e.g., into the washing stage 42 to introduce deasphalted oil in the overall process. Is it noted that Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 27 and the filtrate 29 can also be supplied separately to the washing stage 42, or either one of the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 27 or the filtrate 29 can be supplied to the washing stage 42.

[00182] The solvent supplied to the second solvent deasphalting stage 25 can be a portion of the wash solvent 44 from the solvent storage 61, i.e., a portion of the solvent from the solvent storage 61 that is also supplied to the washing stage 42. A
benefit of using solvent from the solvent storage 61 is that it can reduce the temperature of the asphaltene material 30 prior to the asphaltene material 30 being subjected to the second solvent deasphalting stage 25, thereby acting as a quenching solvent for reducing the temperature of the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 27. A reduced temperature of the second solvent deasphalting stage 25 can prevent flashing of the solvent upon entry into the washing stage 42 when the washing stage 42 is operated close to atmospheric pressures. In some implementations, it can be desirable to reduce the temperature of the asphaltene material 30 within a range of about 50 C to about 70 C, or from about 55 C to about 65 C. The temperature of the solvent used as the quenching solvent, such as solvent 44 from the solvent storage 61, can range for instance from about 15 C to about 40 C, or from about 20 C to about 30 C. The proportion of quenching solvent relative to the asphaltene material 30, in terms of volume, can range for instance from about 2:1 to 2.75:1, which can depend on the temperature of both of these streams, and can be adjusted so as to achieve a desired temperature of the asphaltene material 30 and/or the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 27. In some implementations, the volumetric proportion of quenching solvent relative to the asphaltene material 30 can range for instance from about 2.25:1 to 2.5:1. The temperature of the of the asphaltene material 30 and/or the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 27, and thus the volumetric proportion of quenching solvent relative to the asphaltene material 30, can also depend on the pressure at the underflow to prevent flashing of the solvent.

[00183] Accordingly, the second solvent deasphalting stage 25 can be operated at a lower temperature than the first solvent deasphalting stage 24. For instance, the second solvent deasphalting stage 25 can be operated at a temperature ranging from about 50 C
to about 70 C, or from about 55 C to about 65 C. In addition, the S/B ratio of the second solvent deasphalting stage 25 is generally higher than the S/B of the first solvent Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 deasphalting stage 24, given the low bitumen content of the asphaltene material 30. For example, the S/B ratio of the second solvent deasphalting stage 25, following the addition of the quenching solvent, can be within the range of about 15:1 to about 35:1, or about 18:1 to 30:1. The S/B ratio of the second solvent deasphalting stage 25 can depend for instance on the target quenched temperature of the asphaltene material 30 and/or the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 27, and on the desired recovery requirements such as for the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 27.

[00184] The filtered tailings 35 can be combined with the washed tailings 46 from the washing stage 42 and be subjected to solvent recovery 48, which can also be referred to as a sand solvent recovery unit (SSRU), to remove solvent from the solid mineral material and produce tailings recovered solvent 50 and a solvent recovered tailings 52.

[00185] In the tailings solvent recovery 48, heat can be used to evaporate solvent from the solids to produce a solvent vapour and a solvent recovered tailings 52.
The tailings solvent recovery 48 can thus be operated at higher temperatures compared to most of the other unit operations of the process. The washed tailings 46 and the filtered tailings 35 can be in the form of a cake-like material and therefore solids handling can be implemented for this combined material, as well as the solvent recovered tailings 52 from the tailings solvent recovery 48. Steam stripping, rotary drying and other techniques can be implemented for performing solvent removal from the combined stream of washed tailings 46 and filtered tailings 35. The solvent recovered tailings 52 has a very low solvent and bitumen content and can be directly back hauled to the mine for reclamation, for example, although other transport and processing methods are also possible.
Thus, mine reclamation can occur immediately after the mining operations, thereby significantly reducing tailings management costs and longer term reclamation liabilities.
When solvent is recovered as solvent vapour, the solvent vapour can be fed to a condenser to produce condensed solvent that is supplied to solvent storage 61.

[00186] In this implementation, the filtered tailings 35 and the washed tailings 46 can thus advantageously be dried together in common equipment, which can reduce the number of pieces of equipment of the overall NAE process as well as associated capital and operating costs. In other implementations, the filtered tailings 35 and the washed tailings 46 can be dried separately, which can enable tailoring the operating parameters of the Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 respective solvent recovery units to the characteristics of the tailings materials, if desirable.
an example of this latter implementation is shown in Fig 6.

[00187] Fig 6 illustrates an implementation where the second solvent deasphalting stage 25 of Fig 5 is omitted, and where the washed tailings 46 and the filtered tailings 35 are subjected to solvent recovery, or drying, separately. More particularly, the NAE process shown in Fig 6 includes an ablation stage 6, an extraction stage 12, a washing stage 42, a solvent deasphalting 24, a solid-liquid separation stage 33, solvent recovery stages 48, 60, and an additional drying stage 37.

[00188] The configuration of the ablation stage 6 and of the extraction stage 12 of the implementation shown in Fig 6 is similar to the implementation of Fig 5, with the oil sands being supplied to the ablation stage 6 and mixed with an ablation liquor, the ablation liquor including a recycle stream 9 from the extraction stage 12. Furthermore, the solvent-containing stream supplied to the extraction stage 12 includes solvent diluted deasphalting bitumen 26 that is produced by the downstream stage of solvent deasphalting 24, similarly to what is shown in Fig 5.

[00189] The solvent diluted bitumen 22 can be heated for instance to a temperature ranging from about 100 C to 130 C, and be mixed with additional solvent 44 to achieve a SIB ratio ranging from 2.75:1 to 3.25:1. In an embodiment of the process shown in Fig 6, the solvent diluted bitumen 22 can be heated to a temperature of about 120 C, and be mixed with additional solvent to achieve a S/B ratio of about 3:1.

[00190] In Fig 6, the solvent deasphalting stage 24 produces an asphaltene material 30 that is subjected to a solid-liquid separation 33. The asphaltene material 30 includes settled solids, precipitated asphaltenes, and bitumen dissolved in solvent.
The liquid-solid separation 33 can be performed for instance in a filter, in which scenario the solid-liquid separation 33 would produce a filtered tailings 35 and a filtrate 29, and thus contributes to removing mineral solids, including fines, from the mixture of bitumen and solvent entrained in the underflow of the solvent deasphalting stage 24. The filtrate 29 includes residual deasphalted bitumen dissolved in solvent, and can then be reintroduced into the NAE
process at the washing stage 42, for example, to introduce deasphalted oil in the overall process.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[00191] A portion of the wash solvent 44 from the solvent storage 61 can be combined with the asphaltene material 30, to reduce the temperature of the asphaltene material 30 prior to the asphaltene material 30 being subjected to the solid-liquid separation 33, thereby reducing the temperature of the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen, which can be a filtrate 29 when the solid-liquid separation comprises filtering. As mentioned above, a reduced temperature of the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen, e.g., of the filtrate 29, can prevent flashing of the solvent upon entry into the washing stage 42 when the washing stage 42 is operated close to atmospheric pressures.
In some implementations, it can be desirable to reduce the temperature of the asphaltene material 30 within a range of about 50 C to about 70 C, or within a range of about 55 C
to about 65 C.

[00192] The filtered tailings 35 can be subjected to a drying stage 37 to remove solvent that may still be present in the tailings material and produce dried tailings.
In some implementations, the drying stage 37 can include microwave drying to reduce the concentration of residual solvent in the dried tailings to less than about 100 ppmw. This low concentration of residual solvent in the dried tailings can enable direct disposal of the dried tailings for reclamation.

[00193] The washed tailings 46, which may include higher amounts of residual solvent from the washing stage 42, are subjected to solvent recovery 48 to recover solvent therefrom and produce tailings recovered solvent 50 and a solvent recovered tailings 52.
The tailings recovered solvent 50 can form part of the solvent from the solvent storage 61.
The dried asphaltene-enriched tailings 74, from the drying stage 37 can then optionally be combined with the solvent recovered tailings 52 from the tailings solvent recovery 48 and form the combined dried tailings 70. Drying the filtered tailings 35 separately from the washed tailings 46 can enable customizing the operating conditions of the drying stage 37 to the characteristics of the filtered tailings 35. For instance, a characteristic of the filtered tailings 35 is that their asphaltene content can be higher than the asphaltene content of the washed tailings 50, and a lower liquid content compared to the washed tailings 50.

[00194] Turning now to Figs 7 and 8, two implementations of an NAE process are shown in which the source of deasphalted oil being supplied to the extraction stage 12 includes at least a portion of the wash liquor 54 produced by the washing stage 42, either as the Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 sole source of solvent and deasphalted oil to the extraction stage 12 (as illustrated in Figs 7 and 8), or combined with one or more other sources of deasphalted oil and/or solvent, such as the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 (not shown). When the wash liquor 54 is used as the sole source of solvent and deasphalted oil to the extraction stage 12, the elimination of the recycle of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 can be beneficial for the reduction of liquid flowrate inputs and outputs for the extraction stage 12, the washing stage 42 and subsequent stages, such as the solvent deasphalting stage 24.
This benefit can result in a reduced overall solvent volume overall in the process, which can have advantages in terms of capital and operating costs. In addition, a reduced volume of liquid in the process can enable the removal of solid-liquid separation stages that may be implemented in some scenarios, such as those shown in Figs 5 and 6, to remove liquid from mineral solids and precipitated asphaltenes.

[00195] In the implementation shown in Fig 7, the asphaltene material 30 from the solvent deasphalting stage 24 is combined directly with the solvent diluted tailings 18 from the extraction stage 18 to form a combined solids stream 72 that is subsequently reintroduced into the washing stage 42, without first being subjected to a solid-liquid separation stage.
Similarly, in Fig 8, the asphaltene material 30 from the solvent deasphalting stage 24 is supplied directly to the washing stage 42, without being subjected to a solid-liquid separation stage and without being combined with the solvent diluted tailings 18.

[00196] With reference to Figs 7 and 8, these illustrated implementations of an NAE
process each includes an ablation stage 6, an extraction stage 12, a washing stage 42, a solvent deasphalting stage 24, and solvent recovery stages 48, 60. The oil sands 10 is supplied to the ablation stage 6 and mixed with an ablation liquor. In the implementation shown in Figs 7 and 8, the ablation liquor includes a recycle stream 9 from the extraction stage 12, which can include solvent diluted bitumen 22 produced by the extraction stage 12. The ratio of ablation liquor to ore can be within the range of 0.5:1 to 3:1, and is generally chosen such that asphaltene precipitation is avoided.

[00197] The ablated ore 8 is then supplied to the extraction stage 12, which produces solvent diluted bitumen 22, for instance as an overflow stream, and solvent diluted tailings 18 which may be an underflow stream. In addition, an inert gas may be supplied to the extraction stage 12 to displace and remove oxygen from the ablated ore 8.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[00198] A solvent-containing stream is supplied to the extraction stage 12 to dilute the ablated ore 8 and promote extracting and separation of the bitumen from the mineral solids. The extraction stage 12 produces solvent diluted tailings 18 and solvent diluted bitumen 22. The solvent diluted tailings 18 are then supplied to a washing stage 42, during which a wash solvent 44 is supplied to the washing stage 42 for removing residual bitumen from the mineral solids and produce washed tailings 46 and a wash liquor 54 that includes paraffinic solvent and bitumen that was removed from the tailings.

[00199] The solvent-containing stream supplied to the extraction stage 12 can be derived from one or more downstream units and can include a predominant portion of solvent and a portion of deasphalted oil, such as partially deasphalted bitumen. In the implementations shown in Figs 7 and 8, the solvent-containing stream includes at least a portion of the wash liquor 54 from the washing stage 42 as the source of solvent and deasphalted oil supplied to the extraction stage 12, which enables increasing the onset threshold of asphaltene precipitation. It is noted that in some implementations, the portion of the wash liquor 54 from the washing stage 42 that is supplied to the extraction stage 12 can be added as a predominant source of the solvent and deasphalted oil supplied to the extraction stage 12, in which scenario a make-up solvent, which can be for instance deasphalted oil from a downstream solvent deasphalting stage or another source of solvent such as from the solvent storage, can be added to the wash liquor 54 to achieve a desired SIB ratio in the extraction stage 12. In some implementations, the amount of wash liquor 54 in the solvent-containing stream supplied to the extraction stage 12 can be at least 70 wt%, at least 80 wt%, at least 90 wt%, at least 95 wt%, or above 95 wt%. In some implementations, the wash liquor 54 in the solvent-containing stream supplied to the extraction stage 12 is the sole source of solvent and deasphalted oil supplied to the extraction stage 12, i.e., the wash liquor 54 in the solvent-containing stream supplied to the extraction stage 12 is substantially all of the source of solvent and deasphalted oil supplied to the extraction stage 12. In some implementations, the solvent-containing stream being supplied to the extraction stage 12 can have a content in solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 from a downstream solvent deasphalting stage that is less than 20 wt%, less then 15 wt%, less than 10 wt%, or less than 5 wt%. In some implementations, the solvent-containing stream being supplied to the extraction stage 12 can contain no solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 from a downstream solvent deasphalting stage.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[00200] The solvent diluted bitumen 22 produced by the extraction stage 12 can be heated to reach certain conditions of temperature and pressure, and can then be mixed with additional solvent to achieve a given S/B ratio before being fed to the solvent deasphalting stage 24. In some implementations, a portion of the wash liquor 54 can be combined with the solvent diluted bitumen 22. On the other hand, in such implementations, the portion of wash liquor 54 being combined with the solvent diluted bitumen 22 can be determined taking into consideration the amount of wash liquor 54 being supplied to the extraction stage 12 if no additional source of solvent is provided to the extraction stage 12 to maintain the recovery performance of the extraction stage 12. The addition of wash liquor 54 to the solvent diluted bitumen 22 can also contribute to increase the bitumen content of the solvent diluted bitumen 22 and additional solvent 44 from the solvent storage 61 could be added to achieve the desired S/B ratio.

[00201] In the implementation shown in Fig 7, the solvent diluted bitumen 22 can be heated for instance to a temperature ranging from about 60 C to 90 C, and be mixed with additional solvent to achieve a S/B ratio ranging from 2.5:1 to 3:1. In an embodiment of the process shown in Fig 7, the solvent diluted bitumen can be heated to a temperature of about 75 C, and be mixed with additional solvent to achieve a S/B ratio of about 2.75:1.

[00202] In the implementation shown in Fig 8, the solvent diluted bitumen 22 can be heated for instance to a temperature ranging from about 100 C to 130 C, and be mixed with additional solvent to achieve a S/B ratio ranging from 2.75:1 to 3.25:1.
In an embodiment of the process shown in Fig 8, the solvent diluted bitumen can be heated to a temperature of about 120 C, and be mixed with additional solvent to achieve a S/B ratio of about 3:1.

[00203] As mentioned above, the solvent used for adjusting the S/B ratio of the solvent diluted bitumen can be from various sources, such as recycled solvent from another part of the NAE process. In the implementation shown in Figs 7 and 8, the solvent used for adjustment of the S/B ratio of the solvent diluted bitumen 22 prior to being supplied to the solvent deasphalting stage 24 is recycled solvent from a downstream solvent recovery unit 60 and/or tailings solvent recovery unit 48 that are used to form the solvent storage 61.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[00204] Regarding Fig 8, since the solvent deasphalting stage 24 is operated at a higher temperature, a portion of the wash solvent 44 from the solvent storage 61 can be combined with the asphaltene material 30, to reduce the temperature of the asphaltene material 30 prior to introduction into the washing stage 42. Quenching the asphaltene material 30 in this manner can prevent flashing of the solvent upon entry into the washing stage 42 when operated close to atmospheric pressures, for example. In some implementations, it can be desirable to reduce the temperature of the asphaltene material 30 within a range of about 50 C to about 70 C. Since the addition of solvent to the asphaltene material 30 to reduce its temperature prior to its entry into the washing stage 42 increases the solvent content of the asphaltene material 30, the asphaltene material 30 can be fed to an intermediate stage of the washing stage 42 when the washing stage 42 is performed in a multistage unit. Feeding the asphaltene material 30 to which solvent has been added to an intermediate stage of the washing stage 42 can be beneficial to enable combination of materials having a solvent content within in a similar range, for instance to limit asphaltene precipitation. For instance, the asphaltene material 30 to which solvent has been added can be supplied for instance to a stage of the washing stage 42 where the material being washed has a similar composition in terms of solvent content.

[00205] One benefit of the configuration of the NAE process illustrated in Fig 7, is that since the solvent diluted bitumen 22 is heated to a lower temperature compared to the implementations shown in Figs 5, 6 and 8, the asphaltene material 30 is also at a lower temperature, which means that quenching solvent added to the asphaltene material 30 and/or other cooling stages can be omitted before addition to the washing stage 42. The asphaltene material 30 can be combined with the solvent diluted tailings 18 from the extraction stage 12, and can thus be subjected to a further step of washing to remove residual bitumen from solids and to reintroduce solvent into the overall process, such that the residual bitumen dissolved in solvent forms part of the wash liquor 54.

[00206] On the other hand, it was found that higher settling rates could be achieved when operating the solvent deasphalting stage 24 at a higher temperature and higher S/B ratio, such as in the implementation shown in Fig 8, for instance at a temperature between 100 C and 130 C and at a S/B ratio of about 3:1. In turn, higher settling rates can translate into a potential of reduction in the number and size of the equipment used to perform the Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 solvent deasphalting stage 24, such as settlers, thereby reducing capital and operating costs. For example, it was found during bench scale tests that the settling rate of solids and asphaltene precipitates during solvent deasphalting was in the range of about 100 to about 200 mm/min when operating the solvent deasphalting at a temperature of 75 C and at a SIB ratio of 2.75:1, while the settling rate increased to 780 mm/min when the solvent deasphalting was operated at a temperature of 120 C and at a SIB ratio of 3.00.

[00207] Still referring to Figs 7 and 8, the solvent deasphalting stage 24 produces a solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen 26 that is then subjected to solvent recovery 60 to produce solvent recovered bitumen 64 and recovered solvent 62. The washed tailings 46 from the washing stage 42 are also subjected to solvent recovery 48 to produce a solvent recovered tailings 52 and tailings recovered solvent 50. The recovered solvent 62 and the tailings recovered solvent 50 can be combined to form at least part of the solvent storage 61, and can be recycled to the washing stage 42, for instance. This configuration of the NAE process thus can have the benefit of producing dried tailings from a single source, which are those coming from the washing stage 42.

[00208] Combining the asphaltene material 30 from the solvent deasphalting stage 24 with the solvent diluted tailings 18 from the extraction stage 12 enables further recovery of bitumen and solvent. This configuration of the NAE process provides several benefits, such as lower operating costs compared to hot water extraction (HWE) processes, essentially no wet tailings being produced, a reduced number of equipment and a simplified scheme of operation. In addition, these implementations of the NAE
process produces a higher-value fungible product, which is directly marketable and can be processed in any upgraders and many refineries. The chloride content in the bitumen is effectively reduced as connate water is either retained with the sand or removed during the deasphalting stage.

[00209] It is also noted that solvent removal from the mineral solids can include various steps, unit operations and equipment. For example, there may be an initial bulk solvent removal step followed by a residual solvent removal step. The bulk solvent removal step can be conducted at lower temperatures and energy input levels compared to the residual solvent removal step, for example. One example of the bulk solvent removal step is drainage through a filter, with or without displacement of the liquid by an inert gas or Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 solvent vapour. One example of residual solvent removal uses drying which could reduce the remaining solvent concentration to below 100 ppmw or another threshold (e.g., below 50 ppmw, 20 ppmw, 10 ppmw or 5 ppmw), and could allow for direct disposal of the sands to the mine for immediate reclamation. Practically speaking, the bulk solvent removal is often accompanied by residual bitumen recovery from the solids. Various conventional methods for solvent recovery, beyond free drainage of solvent from the solids, could include the following: thermal drying with steam, direct contact heating and/or electrical heating, gas stripping, washing and/or displacement with an environmentally benign fluid.
To reduce the level of suspended fines, the fluid could be filtered, or the fines allowed to settle under normal or enhanced gravity conditions (e.g., centrifuges).
Settling rates for the fines could also be enhanced by flocculation with the aid of additives.
However, by supplying the solvent wash liquor to the deasphalting stage, the fines entrained in the liquor can be removed via precipitation with the asphaltene aggregates, which means that intermediate processing (e.g., fines removal) can be avoided. Nevertheless, mineral solids could be removed by dedicated steps and equipment at any point in the process, if desired;
for most diluted mixtures gravity settling may be adequate for fines removal with the removed fines being added back to the bulk solids and fed through subsequent washing and drying stages. In terms of solids removal, streams that have lower bitumen content are easier to remove solids from while higher bitumen content streams are more challenging and thus processing and equipment can be adapted accordingly based in part on the bitumen content.

[00210] The processes described herein can facilitate certain enhancements over conventional methods. For instance, the process can enable a controlled level of deasphalting of the extracted bitumen in specific areas of the overall operation, which can be done by avoiding asphaltene precipitation during the extraction stage and then performing asphaltene precipitation in a dedicated deasphalting stage. As mentioned above, deasphalting is achieved using a paraffinic solvent (e.g., pentane, hexane, heptane or mixtures thereof). The solvent may contain small fractions of non-paraffinic components as long as it can induce asphaltene precipitation from bitumen at a reasonably low S/B
ratio). The conventional hot water extraction (HVVE) process has been shown to be highly sensitive to the clay content in the ore, economic only for oil sands with at least 7 wt%
bitumen content, and to produce wet suspended tailings that are challenging to settle and Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 dispose of, resulting in tailings ponds and associated tailings management costs. The HWE process is also constrained by available water of suitable quality for the extraction process. In contrast, NAE of bitumen with hydrocarbon solvents has the potential to be economic over a broad range of ore qualities (e.g., 5wt% - 13wt% bitumen, 20 -40%
fines), to produce dry trafficable tailings and less land disturbance, and to lower the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per barrel of bitumen compared to aqueous extraction.
Another main advantage of the process is that as the produced bitumen from the ore is displaced with a liquid containing partially deasphalted bitumen prior to subsequent stages of washing with pure solvent, the amount of asphaltenes precipitating on the bulk sand during the washing process is minimized.

[00211] In the present paraffinic solvent assisted NAE process, mined oil sands ore can be prepared for extraction using various techniques. For example, the mined oil sands ore can be crushed and sized to a desired lump size range. Then, bitumen is extracted from sized oil sands in an extraction stage, which uses at least one extractor, in the presence of paraffinic solvents and an additional bitumen-based liquid. The extra bitumen that is added during extraction can be obtained or derived from various sources and can have various properties. For example, the bitumen-based liquid can include bitumen that has been partially deasphalted to different degrees or fully deasphalted. The deasphalted bitumen used in extraction can be obtained from downstream processing of the solvent diluted bitumen produced by the extraction stage within the same process train, as shown in Fig 4, or it can be obtained from a parallel process train or another process. In addition, before being fed into the extractor, the sized oil sands feed is inerted (oxygen removed).
Inerting is performed for safely managing the volatile solvent to avoid formation of certain flammable solvent-air mixtures.

[00212] The use of deasphalted oil during the extraction stage facilitates increasing the asphaltene onset threshold due to the asphaltene solubility in deasphalted bitumen components while leveraging the bitumen extraction properties of the paraffinic solvent.
With this mixture of solvent and deasphalted oil that forms a solvating mixture, the paraffinic SIB ratio can be well controlled in the extractor to avoid asphaltene precipitation in the extraction stage.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[00213] In some implementations, a supercritical fluid that has solvent properties (e.g., CO2) could be applied to the recovery of bitumen and solvent from various tailings streams, such as the extractor bottom slurry stream or cakes from the filtration and/or washing stages. Compared with fresh oil sands, this supercritical fluid application can have higher efficiency for hydrocarbon extraction when it is applied to the process streams described above. Known methods using supercritical fluid could be applied to such solids rich tailings streams for bitumen and/or solvent recovery. A recovery stage using supercritical fluid could replace the washing and/or drying stages, for example. Other displacement fluids that could be used include water and steam.

[00214] Various implementations of the processes described herein address challenges of NAE of bitumen from oil sands. For example, such challenges include the safe, cost effective separation of bitumen from oil sands, the recovery of the solvents from the various streams and mixtures, and technology scale-up to commercial scale operations.
Accordingly, the NAE process can be implemented so that the oil sands digestion and bitumen extraction operations occur in equipment which can be operated safely, reliably and cost competitively compared to other sources of bitumen. This can be done using process simplification and process intensification, e.g., conducting multiple operations in fewer processing units and smaller equipment than the current HWE process. The NAE
process can be implemented so that it produces a fungible (e.g., pipelineable to multiple customers on common carrier pipelines), low fines bitumen product. The NAE
process can also be implemented so that high levels of solvent recovery are enabled, while maintaining a low or minimum level of process complexity to deliver low capital and operating costs.
the presence of asphaltenes may lead to some preferred process implementations for the filtration, washing and drying processes. Since the presence of asphaltenes may slow filtration and/or washing, these stages can be adapted accordingly by, for example, increasing residence time, providing higher solvent flow rates for washing, providing higher vacuum conditions for the belt filter, and/or increasing pore size or open area of the belt filter. Asphaltene precipitates could come from two sources: the precipitated asphaltenes from the solvent deasphalting stage (also referred to as SDA
asphaltenes) and deposited asphaltenes on the sand itself due to contact with wash fluids with high solvent content. The SDA asphaltenes could be washed and dried separately from the bulk sand instead of adding it to the mineral solids, and this could be done using separate Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 washing and drying equipment that could have a reduced size compared to the equipment for washing and drying the mineral solids. Asphaltenes deposited on the sand can lower porosity and permeability of solid cake, and thus the washing and drying stages can be adapted accordingly for tailings streams with higher asphaltene content.

[00215] The properties of the different materials and compounds present in the extraction stage can be characterized in various ways. For example, the extraction stage can have an L/S ratio, which refers to the ratio of the liquid phase to the solids phase in the extraction stage or a given extraction vessel. The liquid phase would include the paraffinic solvent, the deasphalted oil, as well as some moisture and liquid-phase bitumen from the oil sands itself; while the solids phase would mainly include the mineral solids of the oil sands, which includes sand, silt and clay. However, it is also noted that the contents of the extraction stage can be characterized in other ways, such as by a ratio of solvent and deasphalted oil (which can be referred to as "S-DAO") to oil sands ore input into the extraction stage or vessel, i.e., S-DAO/ore ratio. The US ratio, the S-DAO/ore ratio, or both, can be controlled to provide desired extraction conditions. Increasing the S-DAO/ore ratio would generally lead to a corresponding increase in the US ratio, although these ratios can be independent and can also depend on other factors, such as the moisture and bitumen content of the ore. As an example, the US ratio can be increased by having a higher residence time for the liquid compared to the solid phase and/or by recycling a portion of the liquid product back into the extraction stage.

[00216] It is noted that the ratio of DAO/ore can also be controlled for the extraction stage.
For example, the DAO/ore ratio can be between 0.02 and 0.20, between 0.05 and 0.15, or between 0.08 and 0.12. The DAO/ore ratio that is used for a given implementation of the process can depend on various factors, including the desired L/S ratio in the extraction stage and the processes used to recover residual bitumen from the solvent diluted tailings.
It is also noted that other DAO/ore ratios could be used in extraction vessels, depending on operating conditions. These DAO/ore values are based on the total DA0 and ore fed into the overall extraction stage that can include one or more sub-stages.

[00217] In terms of S/B ratios used in the extraction stage, this will depend on the type of solvent, the precipitation onset for given operating conditions, and the DAO/bitumen ratio in the extraction stage. The S/B ratio in the extraction stage can be between 0.25 and Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 4, or between 0.25 and 2, or between 0.4 and 2, or between 0.5 and 2 or between 0.5 and 1.5, or between 0.7 and 1.5, for example. Another way to define the S/B ratio in the extraction stage is to be at most 85% of the DAO-modified onset-S/B, which is the S/B
ratio at the same operating conditions at which the first particles of asphaltenes are detectable (e.g., by eye, filtration or microscopy) when the DA0 is present.
The extraction S/B ratio (also called S/BE ratio) can also be up to 50% more than the original onset-S/B
(i.e., without DA0 being present), which is the S/B ratio at the same operating conditions at which the first particles of asphaltenes are detectable (e.g., by eye, filtration or microscopy) when no DA0 is present and thus the only bitumen present is that from the oil sands ore. Nevertheless, it is noted that depending on the operating parameters various S/B ratios and other characteristics can be used.

[00218] In some implementations, parameters such as the S/B ratios in extraction and deasphalting and US ratio in extraction, are provided to enable at least 92%
bitumen recovery from the oil sands ore. In some alternative implementations, the S/B
ratio in extraction may also be below the precipitation onset, but if the minimum bitumen recovery is achieved it could be above the onset and therefore there may be some precipitation.
Nevertheless, in the main implementations, the operating conditions in the extraction stage are below the onset and not too close to the onset such that a change in ore composition could lead to reaching the onset. Since oil sands ore can have a bitumen content variation of about 3% (e.g., 10 3 wt%), the S/B ratio and DA0 recycle can be provided to ensure that the conditions are below the onset even if a sudden 3%
change in bitumen content were to occur (e.g., from 12 wt% of the ore to 9 wt% of the ore). Thus, the conditions can be provided in the extraction stage to be at least about 15-20% below the onset to make sure that the variation in the ore composition does not lead to the S/B
ratio in the extractor to surpass that of the onset.

[00219] As mentioned above, the deasphalting stage can be operated to enable partial deasphalting of the solvent diluted bitumen, and the level of asphaltene rejection can depend on various factors and operating conditions. For example, the asphaltene rejection can be provided depending on the bitumen product specification that is desired. In some implementations, the partial deasphalting is performed to enable between 2 wt%
and 10 wt% asphaltene rejection based on the total bitumen in the oil sands ore.
Since bitumen Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 can often include about 16 wt% asphaltenes, the asphaltene content of the bitumen would be reduced from 16 wt% down to 14% to 6 wt% in this scenario. The deasphalting stage can also be operated to enable asphaltene rejection based on the fines content of the ore to ensure desired fines removal. For example, for high fines oil sands ores, a higher asphaltene rejection (e.g., about 4 wt% to 6 wt%) may be performed to ensure desired fines removal. Thus, the ore grade can be a relevant factor in determining the asphaltene rejection of the process, as can be the conditions of the extraction stage and the fines content of the solvent diluted bitumen produced by the extraction stage.
Furthermore, asphaltenes may also precipitate during the washing process, thereby contributing to the total amount of asphaltenes removed and the overall yield of the process.

[00220] It is also noted that variations of the process can be implemented during different operating modes. For example, during startup mode the DA0 and solvent can be obtained from exogenous sources instead of from the solvent deasphalting stage. In this scenario, the DA0 and solvent can be input into the extraction stage as distinct streams or they can be premixed and then fed into the extraction stage as a mixture. If the DA0 is added separately, it could be heated or otherwise treated to ensure it has a lower enough viscosity. The DA0 and solvent can be obtained from various sources. For example, the DA0 could be obtained from a separate process operating at the same facility, bought from the market, or made by batch for dedicated use in the startup of this NAE
process.
DA0 streams can be obtained, for example, from PFT operations or upgrading operations.

[00221] Regarding the control of the extraction stage below asphaltene precipitation onset, it is noted that the S/B and DA0 provided in the extraction aim to avoid bulk asphaltene precipitation. In some cases, the conditions are provided to avoid or minimize both bulk and localized asphaltene precipitation within the extraction vessel, for instance by ensuring that there are little to no localized S/B ratios that exceed the onset. However, in some other cases, there may be localized asphaltene precipitation to some extent. Even if there is some localized precipitation, once the precipitates move to a region where the S/B ratio is below the onset level, the precipitated asphaltenes can dissolve back into the solbit, at least in part, particularly when little to no water is present in the system.

[00222] Certain additives can be used throughout the process to influence the settling rate of solids. For instance, formic acid is an additive that was found to have a positive Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 impact on settling rate of fine solids, i.e., to increase the settling rate of fine solids during the solvent deasphalting stage. Formic acid can be added to solvent diluted bitumen in the form of a concentrated aqueous solution in a proportion relative to the solvent diluted bitumen feed that is less than about 5 wt%. A concentrated aqueous solution can be for instance an aqueous solution having a formic acid concentration ranging from about 40 wt% to 60 wt%.
Other additives that can influence the settling rate of solids in the context of an NAE
process can include flocculants.Potential feed materials

[00223] There are a number of different oil sands materials that could be used as the feed to the processes described herein. Some examples are described below.

[00224] In terms of feed materials with relatively high mineral solids content and relatively low bitumen content, oil sands ore would be the primary feed material envisioned for this NAE process, particularly for the recycle-type process configuration. However, it is noted that there are several other materials that include hydrocarbons and solids that could be processed.

[00225] By way of example, normal or high grade oil sands ore that has been crushed and sized is one feed material that could be used. Alternatively, low grade oil sands ore could be used as a feed material for extraction of bitumen. Various types of oil sands ore could be used, such as oil sands from the Athabasca region in Canada. This NAE
process extracts high levels of bitumen over a wide range of ore grade and therefore it may cost effectively extract bitumen from low grade oil sands, which would also expand mine life.
In this regard, any water-wet oil sands could be processed using this NAE
process.

[00226] Another example of a feed material is other oil sands that are not economically processable by hot water extraction methods. For instance, this NAE process could be applied to other types of oil sands from other deposits around the world. This includes oil sands from Utah in the United States that are not water-wet like Athabasca oil sands and therefore not readily extracted by aqueous processes. Thus, oil-wet oil sands or other types of oil sands could be processed using these NAE techniques.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

[00227] In terms of feed materials with lower mineral solids content and relatively high bitumen content, oil sands materials such as emulsion streams derived from tailings like mature fine tailings, that include hydrocarbons and solids that could be processed using these techniques. Another example is

[00228] A further alternative application of this technology would be contaminated soil remediation. Hydrocarbon-contaminated soils from spills or leaks as well as industrial sites (e.g., manufacturing, service and storage) contaminated with leaked liquid hydrocarbon can also be ameliorated and cleaned up using this NAE hydrocarbon recovery process.
The contaminated soil would be the feed material that is fed into the process for extracting hydrocarbons from the soil.
Digestion, extraction and separation

[00229] In the context of removing bitumen from other components, such as water and mineral solids, there are a number of different process configurations that can be used to perform desired operations. When processing oil sands ore, for example, the overall process implementation can be designed to provide digestion, extraction and separation operations.

[00230] "Digestion" can be considered to involve disintegrating the lumps in the sized oil sands material to smaller and smaller sizes using shear based means or a combination of mechanical, fluid, thermal, and chemical energy inputs, with the aim of providing a digested material where the lumps are reduced to individual grains that are coated with bitumen. Breaking down the adherence between the solid mineral grains can involve shearing with dynamic or static mixer devices and/or mobilization of interstitial bitumen using heat or solvent dissolution, for example.

[00231] "Extraction" can be considered to involve dissociating bitumen from the mineral solids to which the bitumen is adhered. Bitumen is present in the interstices between the mineral solid particles and as a coating around particles. Extraction entails reducing the adherence of the bitumen to the solid mineral materials so that the bitumen is no longer intimately associated with the minerals. Effective digestion enhances extraction since more of the bitumen is exposed to extraction conditions, such as heat that mobilizes the bitumen and solvent that dissolves and mobilizes the bitumen. Effective extraction, in turn, Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 aims to enhance separation performance in terms of maximizing recovery of bitumen from the oil sands ore and minimizing the bitumen that reports to the tailings. In commercial implementations, target extraction and yield levels can be predetermined.

[00232] "Separation" in this context can be considered to involve removing the extracted bitumen from mineral solids, for example, forming a distinct stream or material that is enriched in bitumen and depleted in solid mineral material. Separation mechanisms can include gravity separation in which density differences cause lighter solvent diluted bitumen to rise while heavier solid mineral material sinks within a vessel. In separation, there is a displacement of bitumen enriched, solids depleted material away from bitumen depleted, solids enriched material. In the context of Fig 4, for example, the extraction stage also includes separation resulting in the production of the solvent diluted bitumen and the solvent diluted tailings. Separation can also involve separating the extracted bitumen from water.

[00233] "Washing" can be considered as a displacement of bitumen in liquid phase from the sand slurry to replace bitumen with solvent after bitumen has been extracted from the mineral solids. Washing can be viewed as more akin to separation than extraction, as extracted bitumen is displaced away from the sand.

[00234] "Pre-washing" can be considered as the use of a de-asphalted oil and solvent mixture as the wash liquor to displace the entrained diluted bitumen from tailings, for example coming from an extraction stage.

[00235] While digestion, extraction, separation and washing are described above as distinct phenomena, some of them can of course occur to some degree simultaneously within a given process stage. Equipment can be provided for a given process implementation to facilitate the digestion, extraction, separation and washing operations to occur.

[00236] Several alternative implementations and examples have been described and illustrated herein. The implementations of the technology described above are intended to be exemplary only. A person of ordinary skill in the art would appreciate the features of the individual implementations, and the possible combinations and variations of the components. A person of ordinary skill in the art would further appreciate that any of the Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 implementations could be provided in any combination with the other implementations disclosed herein. It is understood that the technology may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the central characteristics thereof. The present implementations and examples, therefore, are to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive, and the technology is not to be limited to the details given herein. Accordingly, while the specific implementations have been illustrated and described, numerous modifications come to mind.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

Claims (196)

60

1. A non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation threshold and under extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from the solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a wash liquor and washed tailings;
subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to a first solvent deasphalting stage to produce solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen and an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and residual solvent diluted bitumen;
subjecting the asphaltene material to a second solvent deasphalting stage to produce a second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen and a second asphaltene material comprising at least a portion of the precipitated asphaltenes and of the residual solvent diluted bitumen; and supplying the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to the washing stage.

2. The process of claim 1, further comprising subjecting the second asphaltene material to a solid-liquid separation stage to remove at least a portion of the precipitated asphaltenes from the residual solvent diluted bitumen to produce an asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and asphaltene-enriched tailings.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

3. The process of claim 2, further comprising combining at least a portion of the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen with the second solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to produce a combined solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen stream, and supplying the combined solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen stream to the washing stage.

4. The process of claim 2 or 3, further comprising supplying the washed tailings and the asphaltene-enriched tailings to a tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

5. The process of any one of claims 2 to 4, further comprising subjecting the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to solvent recovery to produce solvent recovered bitumen as a bitumen product stream and recovered solvent.

6. The process of claim 5, further comprising supplying at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent to the washing stage as the paraffinic wash solvent.

7. The process of claim 6, further comprising combining the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent with the solvent diluted bitumen as a first stage deasphalting solvent for the first solvent deasphalting stage.

8. The process of claim 7, further comprising combining the solvent wash liquor with the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent and with the solvent diluted bitumen as the first stage deasphalting solvent for the first solvent deasphalting stage.

9. The process of any one of claims 2 to 8, wherein the solid-liquid separation stage comprises filtering the asphaltene material to produce the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and the asphaltene-enriched tailings.

10. The process of any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein the first solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a first solvent deasphalting temperature ranging from about 100 C to about 130 C.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

11. The process of any one of claims 1 to 9, wherein the first solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a first solvent deasphalting temperature ranging from about 110 C to about 125 C.

12. The process of any one of claims 1 to 11, wherein the first solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a first solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.5 and about 3.5.

13. The process of any one of claims 1 to 11, wherein the first solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a first solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.75 to about 3.25.

14. The process of any one of claims 1 to 11, wherein the first solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a first solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio of about 3.

15. The process of any one of claims 1 to 14, wherein the second solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a second solvent deasphalting temperature that is lower than the first solvent deasphalting temperature.

16. The process of any one of claims 1 to 14, wherein the second solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a second solvent deasphalting temperature ranging from about 50 C to about 70 C.

17. The process of any one of claims 1 to 14, wherein the second solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a second solvent deasphalting temperature ranging from about 55 C to about 65 C.

18. The process of any one of claims 1 to 17, wherein the second solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a second solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 15 and about 35.

19. The process of any one of claims 1 to 17, wherein the second solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a second solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 18 to about 30.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

20. The process of any one of claims 1 to 19, wherein the asphaltene material has an asphaltene material temperature, and wherein the process further comprises supplying a quenching solvent to the asphaltene material to reduce the asphaltene material temperature and enable the second solvent deasphalting stage.

21. The process of any one of claims 1 to 20, further comprising subjecting the oil sands material to ablation prior to the bitumen extraction stage to produce an ablated oil sands material, and the oil sands material comprises the ablated oil sands material.

22. The process of claim 21, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is less than about 5 cm.

23. The process of claim 21, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is less than about 2 cm.

24. The process of claim 21, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is at least 2 times smaller than an initial lump diameter of the oil sand lumps initially present in the oil sands material.

25. The process of any one of claims 21 to 24, wherein the ablation stage comprises contacting the oil sands material with an ablation liquor to dissolve at least a portion of the bitumen of the oil sands material.

26. The process of claim 25, wherein the ablation liquor comprises a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material from the bitumen extraction stage.

27. The process of any one of claims 1 to 26, wherein the oil sands is further contacted with deasphalted oil to increase the asphaltene precipitation threshold.

28. The process of claim 27, wherein the deasphalted oil comprises at least a portion of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen from the first solvent deasphalting stage.

29. The process of claim 27 or 28, wherein the deasphalted oil comprises partially deasphalted bitumen.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

30. The process of any one of claims 1 to 29, wherein all of the paraffinic solvent that is added to the oil sands material in the bitumen extraction stage is from the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen.

31. The process of any one of claims 1 to 30, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.25 and 4.

32. The process of any one of claims 1 to 30, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.25 and 2.

33. The process of any one of claims 1 to 30, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.5 and 2.

34. The process of any one of claims 1 to 30, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.5 and 1.5.

35. The process of any one of claims 1 to 30, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 1.5 and 2 for hexane as the paraffinic solvent.

36. The process of any one of claims 1 to 30, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained above 1.5 for hexane as the paraffinic solvent.

37. The process of any one of claims 1 to 30, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained sufficiently high to provide a fine mineral solids content below 0.5 wt% in the solvent diluted bitumen material.

38. The process of any one of claims 1 to 34, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises pentane.

39. The process of any one of claims 1 to 37, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises hexane.

40. The process of any one of claims 1 to 34, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of pentane and hexane.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

41. The process of any one of claims 1 to 34, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and other natural gas condensates.

42. The process of any one of claims 1 to 34, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and light or heavy gas oils.

43. The process of any one of claims 1 to 34, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and at least one non-condensable gas.

44. The process of any one of claims 1 to 43, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed in a counter-current arrangement.

45. The process of any one of claims 1 to 44, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed at about 25 C to about 80 C.

46. The process of any one of claims 1 to 45, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed at about 25 C to about 60 C.

47. The process of any one of claims 1 to 46, further comprising providing inerting conditions to the bitumen extraction stage.

48. The process of any one of claims 1 to 47, further comprising adding an additive to the solvent diluted bitumen to improve a settling rate of solids during the first solvent deasphalting stage.

49. The process of claim 48, wherein the additive comprises formic acid or a flocculant.

50. The process of claim 48 or 49, wherein the additive is supplied at a concentration of less than 5wt% relative to the solvent diluted bitumen.

51. A non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation threshold and under Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a solvent wash liquor and washed tailings;
subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to solvent deasphalting to produce solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen and an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and residual solvent diluted bitumen;
subjecting the asphaltene material to a solid-liquid separation stage to remove at least a portion of the precipitated asphaltenes from the residual solvent diluted bitumen to produce an asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and asphaltene-enriched tailings; and supplying the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen to the washing stage.

52. The process of claim 51, further comprising subjecting the asphaltene-enriched tailings from the solid-liquid separation stage to drying separately from the washed tailings to produce dried asphaltene-enriched tailings.

53. The process of claim 51 or 52, further comprising subjecting the washed tailings from the washing stage to tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

54. The process of claim 53, further comprising combining the dried asphaltene-enriched tailings and the solvent recovered tailings to produce combined dried tailings disposable as reclamation material.

55. The process of claim 53 or 54, further comprising subjecting the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to solvent recovery to produce solvent recovered bitumen as a bitumen product and recovered solvent.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

56. The process of claim 55, further comprising supplying at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent to the washing stage as the paraffinic wash solvent.

57. The process of claim 56, further comprising combining the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent with the solvent diluted bitumen as a deasphalting solvent for the solvent deasphalting.

58. The process of claim 57, further comprising combining the solvent wash liquor with the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent and with the solvent diluted bitumen as the deasphalting solvent for the solvent deasphalting.

59. The process of any one of claims 51 to 58, wherein the solid-liquid separation stage comprises filtering the asphaltene material to produce the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and the asphaltene-enriched tailings.

60. The process of any one of claims 51 to 59, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 100 C to about 130 C.

61. The process of any one of claims 51 to 59, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 110 C to about 125 C.

62. The process of any one of claims 51 to 61, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.5 and about 3.5.

63. The process of any one of claims 51 to 61, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.75 to about 3.25.

64. The process of any one of claims 51 to 61, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio of about 3.

65. The process of any one of claims 51 to 64, wherein the asphaltene material has an asphaltene material temperature, and wherein the process further comprises Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 supplying a quenching solvent to the asphaltene material to reduce the asphaltene material temperature prior to the solid-liquid separation stage.

66. The process of any one of claims 51 to 65, further comprising subjecting the oil sands material to ablation prior to the bitumen extraction stage to produce an ablated oil sands material, and the oil sands material comprises the ablated oil sands material.

67. The process of claim 66, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is less than about 5 cm.

68. The process of claim 66, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is less than about 2 cm.

69. The process of claim 66, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is at least 2 times smaller than an initial lump diameter of the oil sand lumps initially present in the oil sands material.

70. The process of any one of claims 66 to 69, wherein the ablation stage comprises contacting the oil sands material with an ablation liquor to dissolve at least a portion of the bitumen of the oil sands material.

71. The process of claim 70, wherein the ablation liquor comprises a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material from the bitumen extraction stage.

72. The process of any one of claims 51 to 71, wherein the oil sands is further contacted with deasphalted oil to increase the asphaltene precipitation threshold.

73. The process of claim 72, wherein the deasphalted oil comprises at least a portion of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen from the solvent deasphalting stage.

74. The process of claim 72 or 73, wherein the deasphalted oil comprises partially deasphalted bitumen.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

75. The process of any one of claims 51 to 75, wherein all of the paraffinic solvent that is added to the oil sands material in the bitumen extraction stage is from the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen.

76. The process of any one of claims 51 to 75, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.25 and 4.

77. The process of any one of claims 51 to 75, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.25 and 2.

78. The process of any one of claims 51 to 75, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.5 and 2.

79. The process of any one of claims 51 to 75, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.5 and 1.5.

80. The process of any one of claims 51 to 75, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 1.5 and 2 for hexane as the paraffinic solvent.

81. The process of any one of claims 51 to 75, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained above 1.5 for hexane as the paraffinic solvent.

82. The process of any one of claims 51 to 75, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained sufficiently high to provide a fine mineral solids content below 0.5 wt% in the solvent diluted bitumen material.

83. The process of any one of claims 51 to 79, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises pentane.

84. The process of any one of claims 51 to 82, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises hexane.

85. The process of any one of claims 51 to 79, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of pentane and hexane.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

86. The process of any one of claims 51 to 79, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and other natural gas condensates.

87. The process of any one of claims 51 to 79, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and light or heavy gas oils.

88. The process of any one of claims 51 to 79, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and at least one non-condensable gas.

89. The process of any one of claims 51 to 88, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed in a counter-current arrangement.

90. The process of any one of claims 51 to 89, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed at about 25 C to about 80 C.

91. The process of any one of claims 51 to 90, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed at about 25 C to about 60 C.

92. The process of any one of claims 51 to 91, further comprising providing inerting conditions to the bitumen extraction stage.

93. The process of any one of claims 51 to 92, further comprising adding an additive to the solvent diluted bitumen to improve a settling rate of solids during the solvent deasphalting stage.

94. The process of claim 93, wherein the additive comprises formic acid or a flocculant.

95. The process of claim 93 or 94, wherein the additive is supplied at a concentration of less than 5wt% relative to the solvent diluted bitumen.

96. A non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 threshold and under extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to solvent deasphalting to produce an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen;
combining the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to produce a combined solids stream;
subjecting the combined solids stream to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a solvent wash liquor and a washed tailings material comprising at least a portion of the precipitated asphaltenes; and recycling at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor to the bitumen extraction stage as a predominant source of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil.

97. The process of claim 96, wherein combining the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to produce the combined solids stream is performed prior to subjecting the combined solids stream to a washing stage.

98. The process of claims 96 or 97, further comprising supplying the washed tailings to a tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

99. The process of claim 98, further comprising subjecting the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to solvent recovery to produce solvent recovered bitumen as a bitumen product stream and recovered solvent.

100. The process of claim 99, further comprising supplying at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent to the washing stage as the paraffinic wash solvent.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

101. The process of claim 100, further comprising combining the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent with the solvent diluted bitumen as a deasphalting solvent for the solvent deasphalting.

102. The process of any one of claims 96 to 101, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 60 C to about 90 C.

103. The process of any one of claims 96 to 101, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 70 C to about 80 C.

104. The process of any one of claims 96 to 103, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.5 and about 3.

105. The process of any one of claims 96 to 103, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.65 to about 2.80.

106. The process of any one of claims 96 to 103, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio of about 2.75.

107. The process of any one of claims 96 to 106, further comprising subjecting the oil sands material to ablation prior to the bitumen extraction stage to produce an ablated oil sands material, and the oil sands material comprises the ablated oil sands material.

108. The process of claim 107, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is less than about 5 cm.

109. The process of claim 107, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is less than about 2 cm.

110. The process of claim 107, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is at least 2 times smaller than an initial lump diameter of the oil sand lumps initially present in the oil sands material.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

111. The process of any one of claims 107 to 110, wherein the ablation stage comprises contacting the oil sands material with an ablation liquor to dissolve at least a portion of the bitumen of the oil sands material.

112. The process of claim 111, wherein the ablation liquor comprises a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material from the bitumen extraction stage.

113. The process of any one of claims 96 to 112, wherein the deasphalted oil comprises partially deasphalted bitumen.

114. The process of any one of claims 96 to 113, wherein the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 70 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

115. The process of any one of claims 96 to 114, wherein the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 80 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

116. The process of any one of claims 96 to 115, wherein the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 90 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

117. The process of any one of claims 96 to 116, wherein the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 95 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

118. The process of any one of claims 96 to 117, wherein the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage is substantially all of the source of paraffinic solvent in the bitumen extraction stage.

119. The process of any one of claims 96 to 117, further comprising recycling a portion of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to the extraction stage as an additional Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 source of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

120. The process of any one of claims 96 to 119, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.25 and 4.

121. The process of any one of claims 96 to 119, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.25 and 2.

122. The process of any one of claims 96 to 119, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.5 and 2.

123. The process of any one of claims 96 to 119, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.5 and 1.5.

124. The process of any one of claims 96 to 119, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 1.5 and 2 for hexane as the paraffinic solvent.

125. The process of any one of claims 96 to 119, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained above 1.5 for hexane as the paraffinic solvent.

126. The process of any one of claims 96 to 119, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained sufficiently high to provide a fine mineral solids content below 0.5 wt% in the solvent diluted bitumen material.

127. The process of any one of claims 96 to 123, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises pentane.

128. The process of any one of claims 96 to 126, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises hexane.

129. The process of any one of claims 96 to 123, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of pentane and hexane.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

130. The process of any one of claims 96 to 123, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and other natural gas condensates.

131. The process of any one of claims 96 to 123, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and light or heavy gas oils.

132. The process of any one of claims 96 to 123, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and at least one non-condensable gas.

133. The process of any one of claims 96 to 132, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed in a counter-current arrangement.

134. The process of any one of claims 96 to 133, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed at about 25 C to about 80 C.

135. The process of any one of claims 96 to 134, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed at about 25 C to about 60 C.

136. The process of any one of claims 96 to 135, further comprising providing inerting conditions to the bitumen extraction stage.

137. The process of any one of claims 96 to 136, further comprising adding an additive to the solvent diluted bitumen to improve a settling rate of solids during the solvent deasphalting stage.

138. The process of claim 137, wherein the additive comprises formic acid or a flocculant.

139. The process of claim 137 or 138, wherein the additive is supplied at a concentration of less than 5wt% relative to the solvent diluted bitumen.

140. A non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation threshold and under extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to solvent deasphalting to produce an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen;
supplying each one of the solvent diluted tailings material and the bottom asphaltene fraction as separate streams to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a solvent wash liquor and a washed tailings material comprising precipitated asphaltenes; and recycling at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor to the bitumen extraction stage as a predominant source of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil.

141. The process of claim 140, further comprising supplying the washed tailings to tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

142. The process of claim 141, further comprising subjecting the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to solvent recovery to produce solvent recovered bitumen as a bitumen product stream and recovered solvent.

143. The process of claim 142, further comprising supplying at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent to the washing stage as the paraffinic wash solvent.

144. The process of claim 143, further comprising combining the at least one of the tailings recovered solvent and the recovered solvent with the solvent diluted bitumen as a deasphalting solvent for the solvent deasphalting.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

145. The process of any one of claims 140 to 144, wherein the asphaltene material has an asphaltene material temperature, and wherein the process further comprises supplying a quenching solvent to the asphaltene material to reduce the asphaltene material temperature prior to being subjected to the washing stage.

146. The process of any one of claims 140 to 145, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 100 C to about 130 C.

147. The process of any one of claims 140 to 146, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is operated at a temperature ranging from about 1100C to about 125 C.

148. The process of any one of claims 140 to 147, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.5 and about 3.5.

149. The process of any one of claims 140 to 147, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio ranging from about 2.75 to about 3.25.

150. The process of any one of claims 140 to 147, wherein the solvent deasphalting stage is performed at a solvent deasphalting solvent-to-bitumen ratio of about 3.

151. The process of any one of claims 140 to 150, further comprising subjecting the oil sands material to ablation prior to the bitumen extraction stage to produce an ablated oil sands material, and the oil sands material comprises the ablated oil sands material.

152. The process of claim 151, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is less than about 5 cm.

153. The process of claim 151, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is less than about 2 cm.

154. The process of claim 151, wherein the ablated oil sands material comprises oil sands lumps having a diameter that is at least 2 times smaller than an initial lump diameter of the oil sand lumps initially present in the oil sands material.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

155. The process of any one of claims 151 to 154, wherein the ablation stage comprises contacting the oil sands material with an ablation liquor to dissolve at least a portion of the bitumen of the oil sands material.

156. The process of claim 155, wherein the ablation liquor comprises a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material from the bitumen extraction stage.

157. The process of any one of claims 140 to 156, wherein the deasphalted oil comprises partially deasphalted bitumen.

158. The process of any one of claims 140 to 157, wherein the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 70 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

159. The process of any one of claims 140 to 158, wherein the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 80 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

160. The process of any one of claims 140 to 159, wherein the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 90 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

161. The process of any one of claims 140 to 160, wherein the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage forms at least 95 wt% of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

162. The process of any one of claims 140 to 161, wherein the at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor that is recycled to the bitumen extraction stage is substantially all of the source of paraffinic solvent in the bitumen extraction stage.

163. The process of any one of claims 140 to 161, further comprising recycling a portion of the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to the extraction stage as an additional Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 source of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil that is supplied to the bitumen extraction stage.

164. The process of any one of claims 140 to 163, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.25 and 4.

165. The process of any one of claims 140 to 163, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.25 and 2.

166. The process of any one of claims 140 to 163, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.5 and 2.

167. The process of any one of claims 140 to 163, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 0.5 and 1.5.

168. The process of any one of claims 140 to 163, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained between 1.5 and 2 for hexane as the paraffinic solvent.

169. The process of any one of claims 140 to 163, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained above 1.5 for hexane as the paraffinic solvent.

170. The process of any one of claims 140 to 163, wherein the solvent-to-bitumen ratio in the bitumen extraction stage is maintained sufficiently high to provide a fine mineral solids content below 0.5 wt% in the solvent diluted bitumen material.

171. The process of any one of claims 140 to 167, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises pentane.

172. The process of any one of claims 140 to 170, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises hexane.

173. The process of any one of claims 140 to 167, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of pentane and hexane.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12

174. The process of any one of claims 140 to 167, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and other natural gas condensates.

175. The process of any one of claims 140 to 167, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and light or heavy gas oils.

176. The process of any one of claims 140 to 167, wherein the paraffinic solvent comprises a mixture of hexane and at least one non-condensable gas.

177. The process of any one of claims 140 to 176, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed in a counter-current arrangement.

178. The process of any one of claims 140 to 177, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed at about 25 C to about 80 C.

179. The process of any one of claims 140 to 175, wherein the bitumen extraction stage is performed at about 25 C to about 60 C.

180. The process of any one of claims 140 to 179, further comprising providing inerting conditions to the bitumen extraction stage.

181. The process of any one of claims 140 to 180, further comprising adding an additive to the solvent diluted bitumen to improve a settling rate of solids during the solvent deasphalting stage.

182. The process of claim 181, wherein the additive comprises formic acid or a flocculant.

183. The process of claim 181 or 182, wherein the additive is supplied at a concentration of less than 5wt% relative to the solvent diluted bitumen.

184. A non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation threshold and under extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a solvent wash liquor and washed tailings;
subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to solvent deasphalting to produce solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen and an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and residual solvent diluted bitumen;
treating the asphaltene material to produce an asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen having a reduced concentration of precipitated asphaltenes compared to the asphaltene material, and asphaltene-enriched tailings; and supplying the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen to the washing stage.

185. The process of claim 184, wherein treating the asphaltene material comprises subjecting the asphaltene material to a subsequent solvent deasphalting stage to produce a subsequent solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen as the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and a subsequent asphaltene material as the asphaltene-enriched tailings.

186. The process of claim 185, further comprising subjecting the asphaltene-enriched tailings to a solid-liquid separation stage to produce a liquid phase that comprises residual asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and a solid phase that comprises solids and the precipitated asphaltenes.

187. The process of claim 185 or 186, further comprising combining the subsequent solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen and the liquid phase from the solid-liquid separation stage to produce a combined solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 stream, and supplying the combined solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen stream as the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen to the washing stage.

188. The process of claim 184, wherein treating the asphaltene material comprises subjecting the asphaltene material to a solid-liquid separation stage to produce a liquid phase as the asphaltene-depleted solvent diluted bitumen and a solid phase that comprises solids and the precipitated asphaltenes as the asphaltene-enriched tailings.

189. The process of any one of claims 186 to 188, further comprising supplying the washed tailings and the solid phase from the solid-liquid separation stage to a tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

190. The process of any one of claims 186 to 188, further comprising subjecting the asphaltene-enriched tailings to drying separately from the washed tailings to produce dried asphaltene-enriched tailings.

191. The process of claim 190, further comprising subjecting the washed tailings from the washing stage to tailings solvent recovery to produce tailings recovered solvent and solvent recovered tailings.

192. The process of claim 191, further comprising combining the dried asphaltene-enriched tailings and the solvent recovered tailings to produce combined dried tailings disposable as reclamation material.

193. The process of any one of claims 184 to 192, further comprising subjecting the solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen to solvent recovery to produce solvent recovered bitumen as a bitumen product stream and recovered solvent.

194. A non-aqueous extraction process for producing bitumen from an oil sands material comprising bitumen and solid mineral material, comprising:
subjecting the oil sands material to a bitumen extraction stage, comprising:
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12 contacting the oil sands material with a paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil at a solvent-to-bitumen ratio that is below an asphaltene precipitation threshold and under extraction conditions to induce extraction of bitumen from solid mineral material to produce a solvent diluted bitumen material and a solvent diluted tailings material;
separating the solvent diluted bitumen material from the solvent diluted tailings material;
subjecting at least a portion of the solvent diluted bitumen material to solvent deasphalting to produce an asphaltene material comprising precipitated asphaltenes and solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen;
subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to a washing stage using a paraffinic wash solvent to produce a solvent wash liquor and a washed tailings material comprising at least a portion of the precipitated asphaltenes; and recycling at least a portion of the solvent wash liquor to the bitumen extraction stage as a predominant source of the paraffinic solvent and the deasphalted oil.

195. The process of claim 194, wherein subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to the washing stage comprises combining the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to produce a combined solids stream that is supplied to the washing stage.

196. The process of claim 194, wherein subjecting the solvent diluted tailings material and the asphaltene material to the washing stage comprises supplying each one of the solvent diluted tailings material and the bottom asphaltene fraction as separate streams to the washing stage.
Date Recue/Date Received 2021-02-12