ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,467,001, issued on Nov. 11, was assigned to USD Group LLC (Houston).
"Methods and apparatus for treating bitumen mixtures" was invented by Stuart Berg (Houston), Amanda Howerton (Houston), Mark LeMaire (Houston) and Robert Nall (Dickinson, Texas).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed are methods for preparing a high-viscosity non-hazardous bitumen composition for transportation in a railcar, wherein the method may include: (a) providing to a fractionator system a low-viscosity bitumen composition previously residing in a pipeline having a first viscosity and comprising a miscible blend of hydrocarbons, which blend was prepared by mixin...