I wasn’t familiar with Regina, so I went looking.
It looks like there are two each, two drum pairs with a single heater. I am more used a heater per pair of drums. But I am still learning about some of the older designs.
There are several other methods depending on inputs and outputs desired and available.
Typical heavy oil upgrade processes include coking (delayed and fluid), residue catalytic cracking, residue hydrocracking, solvent deasphalting, visbreaking and residue hydrotreating. While the details surrounding each of these processes are beyond the scope of this article, it is sufficient to say that most of these processes are capital intensive.
Delayed coking is the process of choice in the U.S. for upgrading heavy oils, and in fact, the U.S. has more delayed cokers than any other country.
From:
http://fwc.com/publications/tech_papers/oil_gas/Heavyoil.pdf
The Regina upgrader was built in Japan. It was shipped up to Lake Superior via the St. Lawrence Seaway and lifted off the ship via a special heavy crane, erected at the Duluth Port Authority. It moved to Regina via an extra long rail car that could lean right or left to keep the upgrader from pulling the car over in turns. The big blue crane is still at Duluth.