The large reserves of heavy crude oils and the significant demand of light olefins, particularly propylene, have created new opportunities for developing advanced catalyst and process technologies that efficiently upgrade asphaltenes-enriched crudes to high values chemicals. Indeed, many petrochemicals are produced during crude oil refining as side streams, because the primary goal of the crude oil refinery is the production of transportation fuel. This paper attempts to briefly review the properties of heavy crude oils, the major process technologies for the production of light olefins such as steam cracking and fluid catalytic cracking and finally the catalyst technology mainly focused on ZSM-5 and HY zeolites. We include not only the current understanding of the olefin production technologies, but also the challenges involved in the upgrading of unconventional crudes and residue with high content of heteroatoms and unsaturated poly-aggregate asphaltenes. A strategy for processing unconventional oil that involves the utilization of steam (catalytic) cracking process, in a FCC-type configuration, and enhanced cracking catalyst with high hydrothermal stability is also analyzed.