Bitumen is a petroleum based material, used for binding stones and sands and producing asphalt for road construction. The majority of bitumen across the world is produced by the distillation of crude oil. In the normal process of an oil refinery, crude oil is heated in an atmospheric distillation column. This will lead to the separation of various parts of crude oil according to their molecular weight. The heaviest part of the oil that remains at the bottom of the distillation column, is called Vacuum Bottom and forms the raw material for producing refined bitumen.
For processing vacuum bottom and producing bitumen, we transfer it to another refinery. There, we use various methods of processing VB, including blowing, blending, mixing vacuum bottom with water or solvents, and modifying it with polymers, so that we can provide the bitumen market with various types and grades of bitumen.