Dynamic investigation of nutrient consumption and injection strategy in microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) by means of large-scale experiments

Song, Zhiyong; Zhu, Weiyao; Sun, Guifan; Blanckaert, Koen

doi:10.1007/s00253-015-6586-1

Cited by 27 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Major SRB, such as Desulfobulbus and Desulfovirga , could reduce sulfate to ferrous sulfide, which acts as the cathode reacting with the metal to form an electrochemical cell resulting in the increase of corrosion rate . Regarding the EOR, a previous study found that the injected agents would be quickly degraded by microorganisms within a short distance before reaching oil-rich regions, which will reduce the efficiency of oil recovery . Therefore, researchers have attempted to achieve disinfection by adding microbiocides, but the disinfection efficiency has not been as good as expected. , An inadequate understanding of wellbore biofilms might be the major reason for this shortfall.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…29 Regarding the EOR, a previous study found that the injected agents would be quickly degraded by microorganisms within a short distance before reaching oilrich regions, which will reduce the efficiency of oil recovery. 52 Therefore, researchers have attempted to achieve disinfection by adding microbiocides, but the disinfection efficiency has not been as good as expected. 53,54 An inadequate understanding of wellbore biofilms might be the major reason for this shortfall.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Community Distribution of Biofilms along a Vertical Wellbore in a Deep Injection Well during Petroleum Production

et al. 2021

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In petroleum production, microbial investigations are essential for microbial-induced corrosion (MIC) control and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes. It is suggested that microorganisms can attach to the inner wall of pipes as biofilms, which are more stable and could cause more serious corrosion than planktonic microorganisms in the water phase. At present, research on the biofilms during oil production is mainly focused on the surface pipelines, while few reports have directly investigated biofilms in vertical deep wells. Therefore, in this study, wellbore biofilms were sampled during well workover from several well-tube segments corresponding to different original depths (approximately 0, 840, and 1330 m). The injected water was sampled as well. The results of the 16S rRNA gene library sequencing showed that the biofilms and water-phase communities were distinct (dissimilarity of 0.56–0.64), although they shared 64 OTUs. At the phylum level, the relative abundance of Proteobacteria was 74.65% in the water phase and only 7.86–27.41% in the biofilms. The dominant phylum, Firmicutes, was 6.03–41.21% in the three biofilms, while only 1.16% in the water phase. With increasing depth, the biofilm communities became more diverse (Shannon index of 3.43–4.21), more anaerobic, and more thermophilic possibly due to the depleting oxygen and increasing temperature in samples from the deeper well. For instance, the relative abundance of anaerobes (archaea and strict anaerobic bacteria) in biofilms increased from 18.32 to 40.53%. Thermophilic bacteria (such as Kosmotoga) increased from 6.65 to 15.82%. Among methanogens, hydrogenotrophic genera (such as Methanobacterium and Methanolinea) increased from 3.66 to 9.68%. This study revealed the structural differences between water-phase and biofilm communities in the well, and the depth-dependent distribution of the biofilm communities. These results improved the understanding of microbial ecology in wellbores, which will benefit microbial activity control measures applied in oil production processes, including MIC and oil recovery.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community Distribution of Biofilms along a Vertical Wellbore in a Deep Injection Well during Petroleum Production

et al. 2021

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“…It was used to evaluate the application potential of the exogenous surfactant-producing B. subtilis in facilitating the IMEOR process. Previous investigations have shown that the stimulation of indigenous microorganisms enhances oil recovery by 3.7–9.14 % ( Bao et al, 2009 ; Dong et al, 2015 ), and by 4.89–24 % in core-flooding tests with surfactant-producing bacteria and their metabolites ( She et al, 2011 ; Castorena-Cortes et al, 2012 ; Xia et al, 2012 ; Gudina et al, 2013 ; Al-Wahaibi et al, 2014 ; Arora et al, 2014 ; Song et al, 2015 ). In this study, the brines with nutrients and fermentation broth of B. subtilis M15-10-1 increased the oil displacement efficiency by 16.71%, which is higher than the 7.59% with nutrient injection only.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Exogenous Surfactant-Producing Bacillus subtilis Facilitates Indigenous Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery

Gao

et al. 2016

Front. Microbiol.

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This study used an exogenous lipopeptide-producing Bacillus subtilis to strengthen the indigenous microbial enhanced oil recovery (IMEOR) process in a water-flooded reservoir in the laboratory. The microbial processes and driving mechanisms were investigated in terms of the changes in oil properties and the interplay between the exogenous B. subtilis and indigenous microbial populations. The exogenous B. subtilis is a lipopeptide producer, with a short growth cycle and no oil-degrading ability. The B. subtilis facilitates the IMEOR process through improving oil emulsification and accelerating microbial growth with oil as the carbon source. Microbial community studies using quantitative PCR and high-throughput sequencing revealed that the exogenous B. subtilis could live together with reservoir microbial populations, and did not exert an observable inhibitory effect on the indigenous microbial populations during nutrient stimulation. Core-flooding tests showed that the combined exogenous and indigenous microbial flooding increased oil displacement efficiency by 16.71%, compared with 7.59% in the control where only nutrients were added, demonstrating the application potential in enhanced oil recovery in water-flooded reservoirs, in particular, for reservoirs where IMEOR treatment cannot effectively improve oil recovery.

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“…A major portion of these in vitro DNA molecules could be adsorbed by the porous reservoir with its enormous volume and specific surface area. Although some DNA molecules could avoid being adsorbed during the flow through the reservoir, they could be hydrodynamically sheared into short fragments (shorter than 1 kbp), especially with the long distance (260–300 m, several months of retention time for water and much more for macromolecules to flow through), narrow pore throats (mostly 1.4–3.5 μm, measured by mercury intrusion porosimetry) and high temperature (≥120 °C, considerably higher than DNA denaturing temperature). , Thus, during the cell extraction step the microfiltration membrane should not be able to collect soluble and reservoir-sheared DNA fragments, which therefore would not deviate the community detection of the wellhead samples.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wellhead Samples of High-Temperature, Low-Permeability Petroleum Reservoirs Reveal the Microbial Communities in Wellbores

et al. 2017

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In order to understand the microbial processes in petroleum reservoirs, most liquid samples are collected directly from wellheads because this method is convenient and causes no interruption to oil production. However, the wellhead fluids include the microorganisms inhabiting the wellbore, which could distort the understanding of the community in the reservoir. Therefore, the wellbore community as a possible contaminator should be investigated beforehand. A new method is proposed in this paper to exploit the extreme conditions of selected reservoirs, including low permeability (<40 × 10–3 μm2) and high temperature (>120 °C), to retain and inactivate the microbes in strata, so that the wellbore community can be cost-effectively investigated by directly sampling wellhead fluids. In three selected reservoirs, the results of 16S rRNA gene clone libraries show that both bacterial and Archaeal domains were dominated by Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and Euryarchaeota with low richness (number of operational taxonomic unit, 10–15), while no hyperthermophiles (>110 °C) were detected. Combining the environmental adaptability and the significant dissimilarity between the three communities, it is suggested that in these reservoirs the wellhead samples could represent the communities inhabiting the wellbores, instead of the reservoirs. The coexistence of aerobes and anaerobes indicate that petroleum production processes (such as drilling and workover) were continuously introducing substances (biomass and oxygen) from the upper strata and surface into the wellbore. Of these exogenous microorganisms, mesophiles and aerobes could gradually become dominant over time because growth rates are faster than in thermophiles and anaerobes. Therefore, after decades of oil production, the wellbore community (providing a significant temperature variation along the wellbore) would have a great possibility to become distinct from the reservoir community. This could explain some common problems frequently appearing in field studies, such as the unexpected detection of aerobes and/or mesophiles in the wellhead fluids from anaerobic and thermophilic reservoirs.

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Dynamic investigation of nutrient consumption and injection strategy in microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) by means of large-scale experiments

Cited by 27 publications

References 28 publications

Community Distribution of Biofilms along a Vertical Wellbore in a Deep Injection Well during Petroleum Production

Community Distribution of Biofilms along a Vertical Wellbore in a Deep Injection Well during Petroleum Production

An Exogenous Surfactant-Producing Bacillus subtilis Facilitates Indigenous Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery

Wellhead Samples of High-Temperature, Low-Permeability Petroleum Reservoirs Reveal the Microbial Communities in Wellbores

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