A process for the simultaneous separation of aromatics and non-aromatics from a heavy hydrocarbon stream and a light hydrocarbon stream in which process: (a) aromatics are extracted in a first extractor from the heavy hydrocarbon stream with the aid of a selective solvent which has a higher boiling point than that of said light hydrocarbon stream, (b) selective solvent is removed from the raffinate obtained from said first extractor, to yield heavy non-aromatics (c) aromatics are extracted from the light hydrocarbon stream in a second extractor with the aid of the extract phase obtained from the first extractor, (d) selective solvent is removed from the raffinate obtained from said second extractor to yield heavy aromatics and light non-aromatics (e) the extract phase from the second extractor is subjected to extractive distillation, (f) the bottom fraction of the extractive distillation is separated by distillation into light aromatics and selective solvent, and (g) the selective solvent obtained in step (f) is at least partially recycled to the first extractor.
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