Responses of Microbial Community Composition to Temperature Gradient and Carbon Steel Corrosion in Production Water of Petroleum Reservoir

Abstract

Oil reservoir production systems are usually associated with a temperature gradient and oil production facilities frequently suffer from pipeline corrosion failures. Both bacteria and archaea potentially contribute to biocorrosion of the oil production equipment. Here the response of microbial populations from the petroleum reservoir to temperature gradient and corrosion of carbon steel coupons were investigated under laboratory condition. Carbon steel coupons were exposed to production water from a depth of 1809 m of Jiangsu petroleum reservoir (China) and incubated for periods of 160 and 300 days. The incubation temperatures were set at 37, 55, and 65°C to monitoring mesophilic, thermophilic and hyperthermophilic microorganisms associated with anaerobic carbon steel corrosion. The results showed that corrosion rate at 55°C (0.162 ± 0.013 mm year-1) and 37°C (0.138 ± 0.008 mm year-1) were higher than that at 65°C (0.105 ± 0.007 mm year-1), and a dense biofilm was observed on the surface of coupons under all biotic incubations. The microbial community analysis suggests a high frequency of bacterial taxa associated with families Porphyromonadaceae, Enterobacteriaceae, and Spirochaetaceae at all three temperatures. While the majority of known sulfate-reducing bacteria, in particular Desulfotignum, Desulfobulbus and Desulfovibrio spp., were predominantly observed at 37°C; Desulfotomaculum spp., Thermotoga spp. and Thermanaeromonas spp. as well as archaeal members closely related to Thermococcus and Archaeoglobus spp. were substantially enriched at 65°C. Hydrogenotrophic methanogens of the family Methanobacteriaceae were dominant at both 37 and 55°C; acetoclastic Methanosaeta spp. and methyltrophic Methanolobus spp. were enriched at 37°C. These observations show that temperature changes significantly alter the microbial community structure in production fluids and also affected the biocorrosion of carbon steel under anaerobic conditions.

Distinct Temporal Succession of Bacterial Communities in Early Marine Biofilms in a Portuguese Atlantic Port

“…All these last taxa seem to be the dominant primary surface-colonizing bacterial groups in different locations at relatively later biofilm sampling days (Dang et al, 2008;Dang and Lovell, 2016). Similar to previous studies characterizing marine biofilms (Li et al, 2017;Pollet et al, 2018) there seems to be significant differences at the genus level as a response to the effect of seasonal variations, with more significant differences at the genus level than at higher taxonomic ranks. Similarly, the SIMPER analysis (Supplementary Table S7) also demonstrated that the taxa most contributing to the dissimilarity between different seasons were genera such as Mycoplasma, Friedmanniella, Clostridium, and Propionibacterium.…”

“…Our main objective in this study was therefore to characterize the temporal succession of bacterial marine biofilm communities, over a 1-month period growing on steel surfaces both during winter and during spring. We also aimed at characterizing the biofilm communities growing in surfaces covered with a common a non-release anti-corrosion paint following a 30-day immersion period, which would allow to determine if the product would have an effect on the bacterial biofilm communities, particularly the ones believed to influence the corrosion of steel plates ( Li et al, 2016 , 2017 ).…”

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.…”

Synthetic Mutualism and the Intervention Dilemma

“…Consortia of microbes corroding pipelines of oil reservoir production systems illustrate this point. Differences in temperature select for a different microbial composition, impacting biocorrosion of the pipes [108].…”