Microbial improved and enhanced oil recovery (MIEOR): Review of a set of technologies diversifying their applications

Abstract

Microbial improved and enhanced oil recovery (MIEOR) deploys microbes into wellbores and subsurface oil reservoirs and/or stimulates in-situ microbes to generate biochemicals that induce positive changes to reservoir and/or fluid conditions. MIEOR has a history of laboratory testing and field trials stretching back many decades, but few large-scale commercial projects. This review describes mechanism and components involved and the challenges in scaling-up laboratory performance to field-wide commercial applications. Microbes tend to exist in consortia with the ability to generate a wide range of biochemicals and biomass capable of performing various useful MIEOR actions and some actions that are detrimental (e.g., reservoir souring, facilities corrosion, formation damage). The complexity of the microbial consortia makes it difficult to unravel the net consequences of growing a microbial community in a specific reservoir. This requires extensive experimental studies coupled with long-term field trials and the outcomes of several recent examples are provided. These complexities and requirements have historically slowed down the commercialization of MIEOR. Significant advances in recent years have provided improved modelling and simulation tools capable of representing more realistically the evolution of MIEOR actions at the micro and macro scales. The advantages and disadvantages of MIEOR are identified and explored. Future expectations for the development and exploitation of MIEOR technologies are discussed considering the recent advances it has achieved.

Exploiting Microbes in the Petroleum Field: Analyzing the Credibility of Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR)

“…This water flows laterally to increase the sweeping efficiency of the crude oil (reducing the residual oil saturation), and help to manage excess water production. The microbial consortium clusters can disappear and displace during water flooding, causing a dynamic stimulation of new flow channels [50][51][52]. The strategy of this stage is to characterize microbial communities and to understand their cultivation methods.…”

“…In addition, a negative perception exists regarding the use of microbes, although the tests carried out by laboratories have proven these to be safe [60,156]. Numerous other factors are currently contributing to the lack of attention being paid to this approach [11,12,22,36,42,51,55,64,74,154,163]. Its limitation and benefits are listed in Figure 7.…”

Fabrications and Applications of Micro/Nanofluidics in Oil and Gas Recovery: A Comprehensive Review

“…Microbial improved and enhanced oil recovery (MIEOR) deploys microbes into wellbores and subsurface oil reservoirs and/or stimulates in-situ microbes to generate biochemicals that induce positive changes to reservoir and/or fluid conditions. 194 Although microbial has not been widely used in the oil industry, it is shown to be feasible in a number of laboratory experiments and field trials. 195 Armstrong et al showed that microbial could produce a biosurfactant and bioclogging in water-wet micromodels.…”

Mathematical Modeling, Laboratory Experiments, and Sensitivity Analysis of Bioplug Technology at Darcy Scale

“…After primary and secondary production, up to 85% of the oil remains in the reservoir [23]. Microbial improved and enhanced oil recovery (MIEOR) is one of the secondary and tertiary methods to increase the oil production using microorganisms [35]. Bioplug technology is a MIEOR strategy that consists in plugging the most permeable zones in the reservoir, which provokes water to flow through new paths and recovering the oil in these new zones.…”