Two petroleum residues from European crudes have been fractionated using solvent (heptane) separation and column chromatography. The residues and the separated fractions have been characterised by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) and by UV-fluorescence spectroscopy (UV-F). Matrix assisted laser desorption/ionisation-mass spectrometry of the whole residues and the heptane insoluble fractions indicated that the bulk of the residues covered the mass range m/z 300-2000, while the heptane insolubles (1-2% of the whole) contained material in the mass range from about m/z 300 to 10 000. The upper mass ranges indicated by SEC using polystyrene standards were higher; the earliest eluting material from both distillation residues eluted at times corresponding to polystyrene standards of MMs above 1.85 million u. Possible reasons for the different observations are given. Data from UV-F suggests that the heptane solubility separation method was the most successful for the separation of the largest molecular mass and also probably the most polar materials in these residues. However, all three fractionation methods produced similar trends, showing greater polarity of the fractions to correlate with increasing molecular mass. The shift of maximum intensity of fluorescence towards longer wavelengths (in UV-fluorescence) with increasing molecular size, as indicated by SEC, strongly suggests that the fluorescing molecules are large rather than aggregates of small molecules. Differences in comparison with American petroleum residues can be observed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.