Use of Microorganisms in the Recovery of Oil From Recalcitrant Oil Reservoirs: Current State of Knowledge, Technological Advances and Future Perspectives

Abstract

The depletion of oil resources, increasing global energy demand, the current low, yet unpredictable, price of oil, and increasing maturity of major oil fields has driven the need for the development of oil recovery technologies that are less costly and, where possible, environmentally compatible. Using current technologies, between 20 and 40% of the original oil in a reservoir can be extracted by conventional production operations (e.g., vertical drilling), with secondary recovery methods yielding a further 15-25%. Hence, up to 55% of the original oil can remain unrecovered in a reservoir. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a tertiary recovery process that involves application of different thermal, chemical, and microbial processes to recover an additional 7-15% of the original oil in place (OOIP) at an economically feasible production rate from poor-performing and depleted oil wells. EOR can significantly impact oil production, as increase in the recovery rate of oil by even a small margin could bring significant revenues without developing unconventional resources. Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) is an attractive, alternative oil recovery approach, which is claimed to potentially recover up to 50% of residual oil. The in situ production of biological surface-active compounds (e.g., biosurfactants) during the MEOR process does not require vast energy inputs and are not affected by global crude oil prices. Compared to other EOR methods, MEOR can be an economically and more environmentally friendly alternative. In this review, the current state of knowledge of MEOR, with insights from discussions with the industry and other stakeholders, is presented and in addition to the future outlook for this technology.

Biosurfactants and Their Applications in the Oil and Gas Industry: Current State of Knowledge and Future Perspectives

“…With respect to cold-adapted bacteria, the monosaccharides in the EPS are usually characterized by the presence of mannose and galactosamine (Nichols et al, 2004 , 2005 ). Examples of extreme environments from which biosurfactant-producing microbes have been isolated and cultured under laboratory conditions include oil reservoirs (Arora et al, 2019 ; references in Nikolova and Gutierrez, 2020 ), cold environments (e.g., polar regions) (Gesheva et al, 2010 ; Malavenda et al, 2015 ; Casillo et al, 2018 ; Perfumo et al, 2018 ), salt lakes (Béjar et al, 1998 ; Amjres et al, 2015 ), and hydrothermal vents (Raguénès et al, 1996 ; Rougeaux et al, 1998 ). Moreover, the most obvious place to search for marine biosurfactant-producing microorganisms is in hydrocarbon-polluted areas since biosurfactants play an important part in the process of microbial biodegradation of hydrocarbons (Chandankere et al, 2014 ).…”

“…The idea behind MEOR is that when favorable conditions are present in the reservoir, the introduced microbes grow exponentially and their metabolic products would mobilize the residual oil (Gao and Zekri, 2011 ). MEOR bares with it its advantages and limitations, and the various processes of its application have been described extensively in the literature and recently summarized by Nikolova and Gutierrez ( 2020 ).…”

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

“…In this stage, oil can be recovered using several thermal methods, such as steam flooding [26][27][28][29][30] and in situ combustion or fire flooding [12,28]; chemical methods using alkaline displacement, surfactants, and polymers [28,[31][32][33][34][35]; miscible displacement methods using CO 2 , N 2 , flue gases, kerosene, gasoline, benzene, etc. [28,36]; and via the microbial method.…”

Genomics and Simulated Laboratory Studies Reveal Thermococcus sp. 101C5 as A Novel Hyperthermophilic Archaeon Possessing Specialized Metabolic Arsenal for Enhanced Oil Recovery from High-Temperature Oil Reservoirs (101 °C)

“…Also, several oxidoreductases, dehydrogenases, and dioxygenases involved in the degradation of PAHs, cyclic hydrocarbons and other aromatic compounds were detected in the genome. Members of genus Thermococcus have been reported as e cient hydrocarbon degraders, particularly in high-temperature oil reservoirs, making them ideal candidates for MEOR (Nikolova & Gutierrez 2020). Heavy crude oil, because of its high viscosity and density, is challenging to extract, transport, and re ne by conventional technologies (Shibulal et al 2014).…”