Abstract: A mild chemical treatment i.e. Ruthenium ion catalysed oxidation (RICO) has been employed to examine the asphaltenes of two oils (fresh and slightly degraded) chosen from four oils samples after bulk geochemical analysis. The oils were from same geographical location but unknown oilfield in North America. The distributions of hopanoic acids released from the asphaltenes were investigated and compared with that of hopanes in the maltenes. The distributions were dissimilar e.g. distribution of carbon number maximized at C32 in the terpenoic acids which are not consistent with that of terpanes (hopanes) in the maltenes. However, C29 and C30 hopanes were the prominent in the maltenes where as C32 hopanoic acids homologues in the released products.