Methanogenic microbial community of the Eastern Paris Basin: Potential for energy production from organic-rich shales

Environmental Drivers of Differences in Microbial Community Structure in Crude Oil Reservoirs across a Methanogenic Gradient

“…However, these reservoirs are increasingly being considered a potentially viable contribution to the energy mix as lighter, easier-to-produce crude oils diminish (Hein et al, 2013 ). One suggested mechanism to “produce” this difficult-to-obtain oil is through enhancing in situ microbial communities to metabolize the oil to natural gas via methanogenic crude oil biodegradation (Parkes, 1999 ; Gieg et al, 2008 ; Jones et al, 2008 ; Head et al, 2014 ; Meslè et al, 2015 ). However, significant technical barriers to commercial development remain, including identification and manipulation of the most important biogeochemical factors controlling bioconversion.…”

“…The process has been confirmed in laboratory studies where microbial communities collected from deep methanogenic oil reservoirs can consume crude oil and produce methane (e.g., Gieg et al, 2008 ; Berdugo-Clavijo et al, 2012 ; Berdugo-Clavijo and Gieg, 2014 ). In addition, subsurface communities capable of converting oil to natural gas have been described using a variety of sequencing techniques, but community structure (abundance and diversity) varied between studies (e.g., Dahle et al, 2008 ; Pham et al, 2009 ; Shartau et al, 2010 ; Yamane et al, 2011 ; Kryachko et al, 2012 ; Li et al, 2012 ; Berdugo-Clavijo and Gieg, 2014 ; Meslè et al, 2015 ). Despite this knowledge, we are still limited in our understanding of how hydrochemistry and microbial populations may impact methanogenic crude oil biodegradation under fairly constant lithological conditions (e.g., Kirk et al, 2015 ).…”