Liaohe super-heavy crude oil was separated into its components, namely saturates, aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes(SARA), by the group separation method. Several solvents were used to extract different forms of metallic elements from crude oil. The metallic elements, such as calcium, nickel, iron and manganese, in crude oil, SARA and extract samples were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy(ICP-AES). The results demonstrate that the contents of calcium, nickel, iron, and manganese gradually increase in saturates, aromatics, resins, and asphaltenes, suggesting that the abundance of the four metallic elements in asphaltenes is much higher than that in the other groups. For example, the content of calcium in asphaltenes reaches a maximum of 7,920 μg/g. Among the SARA components of Liaohe super-heavy crude oil, resins account for more than 50 wt%, suggesting that the total amount of the four metallic elements are higher in the resin component than in other components. The four metallic elements mainly exist in the form of organic metallic compounds in crude oil. Further analysis shows that calcium and manganese elements exist mainly as metal salts of petroleum acids, and the majority of the iron and all the nickel exist mainly as metalloporphyrin and non-metalloporphyrin compounds.
