抄録
First of all, an overview of the future importance of ultra-heavy oil in the energy market as well as the present status is described: Heavy oil is expected as an alternative fuel of conventional crude oil, but on the other side, it is recognized to be too heavy to satisfy the strongly increasing demand of light oils. These facts clearly require some new movement towards the conversion technology into light oils. The hydrothermal conversion of heavy oils into light oils in supercritical water with or without alkali may be one of the candidates. In the presentation, its merit, the present status of technology development, and a high pitch of expectation will be described, mostly in order to emphasize the promotion of a project in near future as a cooperative national project for both sides of development and refinery.
