Complementary Microorganisms in Highly Corrosive Biofilms from an Offshore Oil Production Facility

Abstract

e Offshore oil production facilities are frequently victims of internal piping corrosion, potentially leading to human and environmental risks and significant economic losses. Microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) is believed to be an important factor in this major problem for the petroleum industry. However, knowledge of the microbial communities and metabolic processes leading to corrosion is still limited. Therefore, the microbial communities from three anaerobic biofilms recovered from the inside of a steel pipe exhibiting high corrosion rates, iron oxide deposits, and substantial amounts of sulfur, which are characteristic of MIC, were analyzed in detail. Bacterial and archaeal community structures were investigated by automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis, multigenic (16S rRNA and functional genes) high-throughput Illumina MiSeq sequencing, and quantitative PCR analysis. The microbial community analysis indicated that bacteria, particularly Desulfovibrio species, dominated the biofilm microbial communities. However, other bacteria, such as Pelobacter, Pseudomonas, and Geotoga, as well as various methanogenic archaea, previously detected in oil facilities were also detected. The microbial taxa and functional genes identified suggested that the biofilm communities harbored the potential for a number of different but complementary metabolic processes and that MIC in oil facilities likely involves a range of microbial metabolisms such as sulfate, iron, and elemental sulfur reduction. Furthermore, extreme corrosion leading to leakage and exposure of the biofilms to the external environment modify the microbial community structure by promoting the growth of aerobic hydrocarbon-degrading organisms.

Microbial and Isotopic Evidence for Methane Cycling in Hydrocarbon-Containing Groundwater from the Pennsylvania Region

“…Amplification reactions were performed in triplicate as previously described (Vigneron et al, 2016). Annealing temperatures for each assay are indicated in Supplementary Table 3.…”

“…All PCR reactions were conducted in triplicate with the appropriate annealing temperature (Supplementary Table 3), as previously described (Vigneron et al, 2016). No amplification was observed in DNA extraction procedural blanks or PCR negative controls.…”

Marine Biofilms: A Successful Microbial Strategy With Economic Implications

“…Microbes have an important role in bioremediation of oil compounds, but microbial contamination of oil and natural gas facilities is undesired because they may metabolize hydrocarbons, change sulfur content, and influence oil density and viscosity. The anaerobic conditions found in the oil industry, combined with the large availability of substrates for microorganisms (e.g., hydrocarbons and organosulfur compounds), favor the appearance of biofilms causing microbial influenced corrosion (Vigneron et al, 2016;Abu Bakar et al, 2017;Li et al, 2017). However, aerobic microorganisms such as Pseudomonas sp.…”

Electrospinning: A Powerful Tool to Improve the Corrosion Resistance of Metallic Surfaces Using Nanofibrous Coatings

“…Corrosion processes can be influenced by the metabolic activity of some microorganisms [80,81]. This type of corrosion, termed microbial induced corrosion (MIC), or biocorrosion, affects most of the systems exposed to a biological environment, including marine structures [82,83], offshore oil and gas industries [84,85], water distillation and other separation processes [86][87][88] and biomedical devices [89][90][91], where the proliferation of microorganisms can provoke implant-associated infections [92,93]. From the US $2.2 trillion of annual cost of corrosion worldwide estimated by the World Corrosion Organization [94], the economic burden imputed to biocorrosion could be getting on for 20%, that is $440 billion yearly [95][96][97][98].…”