Opportunity oils, specifically bituminous crude produced via thermal in situ Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD), are considered low quality due to high Total Acid Number (TAN). Catalytic esterification with methanol can improve the quality of crude oil to meet pipeline specification TAN, potentially minimizing netback penalties (estimated global range of USD $1to $10 per barrel) subjected to upstream producers, while also reducing the naphthenic acid corrosivity in downstream refining and upgrading. Based on Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) datafrom 2021, approximately 1.40MM barrels per day of thermal in situ and 0.54MM barrels per day of surface mine high TAN (>1) bituminous crude oil production capacity exists in Alberta. Usingan assumed penalty of USD $2 per barrel, the economic impact of TAN on Alberta’s oil industrycould be upwards of USD $1.4B per year. A solid acid catalyst support derived from wastepetroleum coke, produced from Alberta oil sands mining delayed coking carbon rejectionupgrading, was developed, and tested. The catalyst is a unique hybrid nanocomposite materialproduced via top-down mechanochemical synthesis methodology to decorate, and activate, iron(II,III) oxide magnetite nanoparticles on petroleum coke, which is a new material with no previous reported studies in literature related to TAN reduction via esterification. Lewis acidity isintroduced via magnetite nanoparticle comminution, or fracturing, during mechanochemical high energy planetary ball milling producing an active catalyst for the esterification of highly acidic model compound distillate and SAGD produced bituminous crude from the Alberta McMurray formation. The catalyst, denoted as Fe3O4@PC, is a weak Lewis acid catalyst with a surface area of approximately 170 m2/g and total acidity of 1.80 mmol/g. The acidity of bituminous crude was reduced to below pipeline specification (TAN ?1.1) from TAN 2.25 mg KOH/g to 0.74 mg KOH/g at 200ºC, 4.8 MPa (gauge), using the developed catalyst, with methanol in a batch reactor.