Determination of Optimum Parameters for Anaerobic Thermophilic Bacterium Injection using Commercial Simulator: Core Flooding Validation and Sensitivity

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to determine the optimum anaerobic-thermophilic bacterium injection (Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery) parameters using commercial simulator from core flooding experiments. From the previous experiment in the laboratory, Petrotoga sp AR80 microbe and yeast extract has been injected into core sample. The result show that the experiment with the treated microbe flooding has produced more oil than the experiment that treated by brine flooding. Moreover, this microbe classified into anaerobic thermophilic bacterium due to its ability to live in 80 degC and without oxygen. So, to find the optimum parameter that affect this microbe, the simulation experiment has been conducted. The simulator that is used is CMG – STAR 2015.10. There are five scenarios that have been made to forecast the performance of microbial flooding. Each of this scenario focus on the injection rate and shut in periods. In terms of the result, the best scenario on this research can yield an oil recovery up to 55.7%.