It is inevitable that in decades to come, heavy feeds will dominate petroleum refining. For this purpose, both carbon rejection and hydrogen addition processes have been used commercially and will continue to be used. The content of metals (Ni + V) in the most problematic feeds such as VRs and ARs derived from heavy crudes (e.g., Boscan, Orinoco, Maya, Zuata) may exceed 1000 ppm. The present state-of-art of the upgrading processes suggests that the enormous costs of catalyst inventory required for hydroprocessing of such feeds could not be avoided. In this regard, the carbon rejection routes, i.e., thermal cracking and hydrocracking as well as the direct coking and deasphalting, may alleviate the problem. Practical experience suggests that direct coking (delayed and fluid/flexi coking) has been the preferred route for large plants processing more than 100 000 barrel per day of VR. By-products of coking such as hydrocarbon gases and solid coke may be valuable feeds for the production of electricity, steam, H ₂ and chemicals on the site of refinery. A growing interest in the integration of the processes producing such products with petroleum refinery has been noted. The viability and flexibility of such integration improve with increasing size of refinery. Coincidently, trends around the world, supported by economic parameters, indicate a departure from small refineries toward large refineries. Nevertheless, hydroprocessing will remain an integral part of petroleum refinery in spite of the fact that the primary upgrading of VR was conducted using a carbon rejection process. In any...