SPE 77796
Optimization of Microbial Flooding in Carbonate Reservoirs
Reyadh Almehaideb & Abdulrazag Y. Zekri, United Arab Emirates University
Copyright 2002, Society of Petroleum Engineers Inc.
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and
Exhibition held in Melbourne, Australia, 8–10 October 2002.
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Abstract
Up to date, several investigators have studied the possibility of
using microorganism in improving oil recovery, but little work
has been reported regarding optimization of the process. In the
laboratory, bacteria have been shown to produce chemicals
such as surfactant, acids, solvents, polymers, and gases
(mainly CO2) that can significantly contribute to improving
displacement and sweep efficiency. Some of these
microorganisms can withstand the harsh environment of the
oil field and grow at a substantial rate feeding on the organic
matter and crude oil itself, thus leading to improvement of oil
recovery. Moreover, the MEOR process is friendly to the
environment. Several field trials have been reported that
showed the potential of bacterial enhanced oil recovery
(BEOR) in improving oil recovery.
Because these microorganisms are living organism and their
behavior is difficult to predict, therefore no attempt has been
made to study the parameters that control the process
performance. This has become the main objective of this
work. In this work, we investigate the field parameters that
affect the design a new process of Microbial Enhanced Oil
Recovery in order to achieve optimum oil recovery. In order to
reach this goal, the reservoir engineering factors that affect the
recovery efficiency are defined first. These field parameters
considered the most relevant and chosen for this study are the
injected bacteria concentration, the adaptation time, the
optimum slug size of bacteria solution, and the process
application time. The capability of the microbes to transmit
through a heterogeneous system and in long cores, and the
effect of bacteria on rock wettability are also investigated.
Introduction
A number of literature reviews have been published on effect
of microorganism on enhanced oil recovery (Smith & Collins1,
Zajic & Donalison2, Moses & Springham3, Bryant & Douglas4
and Bryant & Burchfield5). Single well treatment is the most
widely used technique to clean the area around the wellbore
and improve oil recovery. In this technique, the well is
stimulated through the injection of a small amount of bacteria
solution and kept closed for a certain amount of time (number
of hours depending on bacteria adaptation time) before placing
the well back on production. This is process is relatively
inexpensive and quick response could be obtained. Another
method is to inject the microorganism with water at a certain
concentration of cells/ml with a small amount of nutrient.
Actually, both techniques can be implemented with minor
modification to existing field facilities. A number of projects
were conducted utilizing microorganism to improve oil
recovery (Streeb and Brown6, Lazar et al.7, Bryant, R.S. et al.8,
Dietrich et al.9, Portwood10, Bryant et al.11, Ratliff et al.12,
Jenneman et al.13, Dietrich et al.14, Yonebayashi15 and
Maure16) where improvement in the oil recovery was reported.
In laboratory, microbes have been reported to produces
chemicals such as surfactant, acids, solvents, (ketones and
alcohol's), polymer and gases (CO2)17-21 that can improve the
oil recovery substantially over water flooding.
The main objective of this work is to experimentally
evaluate the effects of different parameters on the overall
microbial recovery efficiency. The parameters investigated in
this project were the adaptation time, the slug size, the timing
of the process (secondary versus tertiary), and the
concentration of microbes. In addition, the capability of
microbial species to transmit through a heterogeneous system
and in long cores was also investigated.
Description of Experiments
Apparatus and Materials
Bioreactor. This reactor is an air curtain driven fluidized bed
reactor22. It is used to generate the live bacteria solution for
injection experiments. Compressed air is injected into the
reactor through a series of perforations in a transverse tube in
order to create fluid circulation with an air curtain. This
system provides for bacteria an efficient aeration technique
that is non-intrusive and is particularly helpful for growing
2 R. ALMEHAIDEB & A. ZEKRI
filamentous bacteria. The location of the air curtain, as well as
the flow of the compressed air, was optimized. Air was
supplied to the reactor through a transverse tube with equally
spaced 16 perforations of 1.6 mm diameter each, placed in a
single row. The tube was placed centrally across the bottom of
the bioreactor.
Bacteria. Two strains of bacteria rounded and rod shape type,
both belonging to the Bacillus family, were obtained from the
UAE local hot water streams. These bacteria were unique in
their tolerance of the high temperature and salinity conditions
prevailing in the UAE environment. Prior to injection in the
cores, an inorganic powder nutrient (containing beef extract
and yeast) was added to live bacteria and mixed together in the
bioreactor. This had the effect of increasing the bacterial
concentration to around 3×103 cells/ml in the water solution,
which was then used in flooding experiments.
Computerized Image Analyzer. A computerized image
analysis system was used to measure concentrations of
bacteria in the culture for both the injected and the effluent
water samples. The basic system consists of a high-resolution
video camera on an optical microscope, an image processor, a
Pentium PC, a high-resolution image monitor, and a high-
resolution text monitor. The image is visualized with the
video camera through a microscope lens. As soon as digital
images are produced from an accepted microphotograph, a
feature count can be performed. This is simply accomplished
by selecting the desired bit plane and activating the
count option.
Core Flooding Apparatus. The schematic diagram of the
core flooding apparatus is shown in Fig.1. Two fluid
accumulators are connected to a variable rate injection pump.
The core holder is placed in a variable temperature oven.
Pressure and temperature transducers are connected at both
ends of the core inside the core holder. A chart recorder and a
digital pressure recorder are connected to the temperature
transducer and pressure transducer respectively.
Rock and Fluids. Limestone cores obtained from outcrops at
Hafeet mountains (Al-Ain, UAE) were cut into 3.81×7.725
cm, 3.81×7.77, and 3.81×5.92 cm cylinders using a core
cutting device. The porosity and permeability of these cores
are listed in Table 1. Crude oil was obtained from one of the
United Arab Emirates oil fields (AH). Also, actual core
samples obtained from the same UAE oil field (AH) were
used to perform the composite core flooding. The basic
physical properties of these cores are presented in Table 2.
Experimental Procedure
Initial tests involved the growth of bacteria in the air curtain
bioreactor under a 22°C room temperature. A 10-gm/4000 ml
of the nutrient is added to the bacteria solution. The next step
is to observe the bacteria growth as a function of time. To
determine if the bacteria are aerobic or anaerobic, a sample of
SPE 77796
bacteria solution is put in a smaller bioreactor and N2 is
bubbled through the bacteria solution.
The cores were initially cleaned using a Dean-Stark
extraction heater unit Lab-line model 5000-1. It consists of
rounded bottom flask, soxlet, condenser, heater, and water-
cooling system. Toluene is constantly evaporated and
condensed; the condensed toluene passes through the core
sample removing all the oil and any foreign material from the
core before returning back to the rounded bottom flask for
evaporation again. This process is repeated until a clear
colored toluene is observed to return back to the heating
system unit. The process of core cleaning is performed in all
cores before and again after completion of the experimental
work if those cores were to be used again.
The cores were dried at 80°C for 72 hours. Each core was
evacuated for 12 hours and saturated with 5% (by weight)
brine solution. During this step, we measured the volume of
water required to completely saturate a core in order to
determine its pore volume and porosity. Each core was then
flooded at a high rate with the AH crude until no further brine
was produced. The residual brine saturation for each core was
calculated from the recovered effluent brine volumes. All
cores were subjected to water flooding until no further oil was
produced in order to prepare these for tertiary bacteria
flooding. One core was exempted as it was planned for
secondary bacteria flooding mode. The next steps are
dependent on the objective of the experiment. In determination
of adaptation time, three runs were conducted. Core # 0P6 was
used in all runs to illuminate the effects of pore size
distribution on the process performance. This core (OP6) was
cleaned at the end of each run as described above and the core
basic properties (porosity & permeability) were measured after
cleaning to insure no major core damage is taking place after
each experiment and the experimental starting conditions were
the same as the basic conditions for all three runs. A bacteria
solution with a concentration of 5×103 cells/ml was used in all
runs. The bacteria concentration was measured using the
computer image analyzer. One-half pore volume of bacteria
solution was injected and the system was shut down at 150°C
for the specified adaptation time followed by continuous
bacteria injection until no further oil is produced. All produced
fluids and pressures as function of time were measured. All of
three experiments were performed using 1 cc/min as an
injection rate.
In the second set of experiments, the adaptation time was
kept constant for all runs at 3 hours and pore volumes injected
were 20%, 50% and 80%. All runs were conducted at constant
temperature of 150°C and a constant injection rate of 1 cc/min
using core # OP9 at tertiary condition (i.e. after water
flooding). The core was cleaned at the end of each run and
basic properties of the core (porosity & permeability) were
measured after cleaning to insure no major core damage has
taken place due to the previous run and the experimental runs
start at the same basic conditions for all three runs. A
3
bacteria solution with concentration of 5 × 10 cells/ml were
injected in all tests.
SPE 77796 OPTIMIZATION OF MICROBIAL FLOODING IN CARBONATE RESERVOIRS
In the third set of experiments two runs were performed to
study project timing i.e. secondary and tertiary processes, the
adaptation time of 3 hours followed by continuous injection
process was used in the two experiments. The core # OP1 was
used in this phase of work. The core was set in the secondary
mode (initial saturations condition) for the first experiment
and in a tertiary mode (after water flooding) for the second
experiment. In each run, a 20% pore volume of bacteria
solution (5 × 103 cells/ml) was injected initially in the core and
the system was shutdown for a period of 3 hours before
resuming bacteria injection at 1 cc/min and temperature of
150°C until 100% water cut was obtained.
In the fourth set of experiments, cores were stacked in a
random order as presented in Table 2. Pieces of filter paper
were placed between individual cores to reduce the capillary
end effect. The main objective of this experiment is to
establish if the bacteria can move through a relatively long
core and still survive. Cores were saturated with brine and
flooded with oil until no further brine is produced prior to
stacking them. A bacteria flooding was initiated immediately
after stacking the cores, i.e. in secondary mode. All produced
fluids were measured at the end of all experiments.
Results & Discussion
Adaptation time
Three runs were conducted to study the effect of adaptation
time on the performance of microbial flooding. The adaptation
times used in this project were 0.5, 3, and 6 hours. As shown
in Fig. 2, the adaptation time is critical to the overall
performance of bacteria flooding. Different adaptation time
yields different oil recovery. Maximum oil recovery is
obtained at the optimum adaptation time. The adaptation time
is simply the time required for the bacteria to adapt to the new
environment. For every system there is an optimum time
where the bacteria growth reach its maximum, i.e. the
maximum number of bacteria cells per unit volume. Zekri et
al.21 have shown that bacillus bacteria can reduce the
interfacial tension of AH crude at different temperatures and
salinities. Therefore, the adaptation time is critical for the
overall performance of microbial flooding, and for the studied
systems, 3 hours was the optimum adaptation time where 91%
of original oil in place was produced compared to 81% & 88%
of OOIP were produced at adaptation time of 0.5 and
6 hours respectively.
Slug size
In the second set of experiments, three runs were conducted to
study the effect of slug size on the performance of microbial
flooding. The adaptation time was kept constant for all runs at
3 hours and the slug sizes used were 20%, 50% and 80% of
the pore volume. Fig. 3 shows that the optimum slug size for
the studied systems is around 20%. No difference in the
overall recovery was observed by using different slug sizes,
which is around 95% of OOIP. As the specified pore volume
injected propagate through the porous media, it contacts the
residual oil and reduces the interfacial tensions. In addition, it
3
generates a micro-emulsion phase (see Fig. 4) and produces a
mild acid which helps in improving the oil recovery efficiency
(Zekri et al17.) all of these mechanisms results in the liberation
of the residual oil which exists as droplets, these droplets of
oil coalesce and move thought the porous media contacting
more oil which instantly coalesce with traveling oil forming an
oil bank. As the oil bank moves, it collects more of the
residual oil until it reaches the outlet, thereby, producing most
of the oil at breakthrough. This phenomenon was observed in
all of our runs. Therefore, it is important in determining the
slug size required for injection to make sure that the injected
slug is not diluted by the brine solution before the oil bank
reaches the outlet or production wells in the case of field
application. This proper slug size has to be determined in the
laboratory using cores and fluids obtained from the
candidate reservoir.
Secondary vs. tertiary application
Fig. 5 shows the %oil recovery versus pore volume injected
for the secondary and tertiary mode. No significant difference
in overall recovery between secondary and tertiary system was
observed. The recovery efficiencies of the secondary and
tertiary processes are 90.4% and 91% respectively. The
results indicated that most of produced oil will be obtained
with less pore volume injected in the case of the secondary
recovery process as compared with the tertiary process, i.e. the
project completion time is much shorter in the case of
secondary process. The results of this phase of work is
expected since bacteria injection in secondary mode will have
a good chance to contact the maximum amount of oil as soon
as injected, while during the tertiary mode bacteria will work
hard to contact the oil since the system is full of brine water
and needs more time, i.e. pore volume injected, to displace all
displaceable oil. Based on the economics of the project,
bacteria solution may thus be started before the end of water
flooding since the basic cost of bacteria is minimal and the
same surface and subsurface equipment required for water
flooding can be used for bacteria injection.
Composite Core Floods
The composite core (comprised of 6 cores) showed ultimate
oil recovery due to microbial flooding of 80.7% of OOIP.
Meanwhile, for single core flooding, the recovery, on average,
was 90% of OOIP. Summary of composite core flooding
results are presented in Table 3. Reduction in the ultimate oil
recovery during the composite core flooding is probably due
to the heterogeneity of the system where some of the oil is not
swept during the process. Fig. 6 shows a plot of % cumulative
oil recovery versus pore volume injected for the composite
core flooding experiment. Also, live bacteria were found in
water samples collected from the outlet. Based on these
results, we establish that the bacteria can penetrate the
heterogeneous system and can survive and travel in the
relatively long cores.
Alteration in core wetability
Figs. 7 & 8 show the relative permeability of oil-water system
4 R. ALMEHAIDEB & A. ZEKRI
and oil-bacteria system respectively. The cross over point
(point of equal oil and water relative permeability) is shifted to
the right, at a higher water saturation of around 72 % as a
result of bacteria flooding compared to 48% obtained in the
case of water flooding because the residual oil saturation has
diminished due to mobilization by bacteria. Therefore, it is
approximating plug-flow with relative permeabilities vs.
saturaion lines straightening up.
Portion of the bacteria in solution was found to partition into
the oil phase as shown in Fig. 9. These bacteria tends to stick
and spread into the oil phase and change its chemical &
physical behavior as a result of that the oil phase moves and
sticks to the rock surface instead of the middle of the pore, see
Fig. 10. An additional mechanism contributing to the change
of wetability phenomena is that bacteria has affinity to the
rock surfaces, therefore, these partitioned bacteria drag the
drops of oil from the middle of the pores to the surrounding
rocks. Fig. 11 shows a portion of produced water full of
bacteria surrounding a piece of rock dissolved by the bacteria-
produced mild acid. As shown in the figure, bacteria move in
large numbers surrounding the rock surface leaving large
portions of the body of water free from bacteria. This
demonstrates that bacteria have a degree of affinity to the
carbonate rock surfaces. Therefore, in order to study microbial
flooding using reservoir simulation, it is essential to use oil-
microbial relative permeability data relevant to the studies
system instead of using water-oil relative permeability data.
Conclusions
Based on the experimental results of this study, the following
conclusion are made:
1. Microbial flooding could be initiated either as secondary or
a tertiary recovery method with almost similar overall
recovery efficiency of oil.
2. The adaptation time has a major effect on the overall
process recovery efficiency, and should be determined in
the laboratory for every proposed microbial flooding
system. In the core system studies here, 3 hours was the
optimum value.
3. A slug size for the ebactreia solution is important and need
also to be determined experimentally. In the currently
studied systems, it was around 20% pore volume.
4. Composite core experiments indicate bacteria have the
ability to be transmitted through heterogeneous and
relatively long cores.
5. Bacteria flooding can significantly affect the wetability of
the system by reducing the residual oil saturation,
straightening the lines, and changing the crossover point.
The system thus may move from water wet to close to plug
flow. Thus, it is recommended to use bacteria-oil relative
permeability data specific for each system in reservoir
simulation studies of any microbial flooding system.
Acknowledgment
This work was part of a reearch project funded by Abu-Dhabi
National Oil Company (ADNOC) through the UAE University
SPE 77796
Center for Externally Funded Research (eFORS). Special
thanks are due to Shahain Mohammed, Abdulla Rashid
Alwali, Khaled Mohsen Al-Kethairi, Mohammed Saeed Ali
and Jassim Mohammed Abdulla for performing the flooding
experiments. We also thank Ibrahim El-Magrabi for
performing the image analysis work and Samir El-Hardelo for
supervising all flooding experiments.
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SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition,
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Conference, Midland, Texas, (March 1996).
SPE 77796 OPTIMIZATION OF MICROBIAL FLOODING IN CARBONATE RESERVOIRS
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6 R. ALMEHAIDEB & A. ZEKRI SPE 77796

TABLE 1- BASIC CORE PROPERTIES

Sample D L Coss Area Vp Κ

Φ
# cm cm cm cc md
OP1 3.81 7.72 11.40 15.82 1.83 0.179
OP6 3.81 7.77 11.40 11.68 0.77 0.13
OP9 3.81 5.92 11.40 11.04 2.23 0.16

TABLE 2- COMPOSITE CORE BASIC PROPERTIES

Sample Vp (cc) D (cm) L (cm) A (cm2) φ K (md)

51 AV 2.89 2.50 2.43 4.91 0.24 2.3
93 AV 3.52 2.52 2.39 4.97 0.30 33.4
95 AV 3.75 2.51 2.58 4.95 0.29 25.0
97 AV 4.08 2.52 2.54 4.97 0.32 20.7
98 AV 4.01 2.50 2.69 4.91 0.30 10.0
159 AV 3.10 2.51 2.53 4.95 0.25 15.7

TABLE 3- RESULTS OF COMPOSITE CORE MICROBIAL FLOODING

Core # φ (fraction) K (md) Swi Sor
51 AV 0.24 2.3 0.5035 0.4965
93 AV 0.30 33.4 0.6142 0.3858
95 AV 0.29 25.0 0.6823 0.3177
97 AV 0.32 20.7 0.6253 0.3747
98 AV 0.30 10.0 0.6547 0.3453
159 AV 0.25 15.7 0.6130 0.3870
SPE 77796 OPTIMIZATION OF MICROBIAL FLOODING IN CARBONATE RESERVOIRS 7

Fig. 1- Schematic diagram of core flooding apparatus

96
% Recovery of OOIP

92

88

84

80
0 2 4 6 8
AdaptationTime in houres

Fig. 2- Effect of adptation time on theperformance of microbial flooding

8 R. ALMEHAIDEB & A. ZEKRI SPE 77796

1.2

Oil Reocvery
0.8

0.4

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Pore vlume injected

Fig. 3- The effect of slug size on microbial flooding performance

Fig. 4- Microphotographic of microemulsion

100.00
Cumulative Oil Recovery, %

80.00 Secondary
Tertiary
60.00

40.00

20.00

0.00
0 5 10 15 20
Pore Volume Injection, fraction

Fig. 5- Results of secondary and tertiary microbial flooding

SPE 77796 OPTIMIZATION OF MICROBIAL FLOODING IN CARBONATE RESERVOIRS 9

100

Cumulative Oil Recovery, %

80

60

40

20

0
0 2 4 6 8
Pore Volume Injection, fraction

Fig. 6- The performance of bacteria in a composite core

0.8

0.6
Kro, Krw

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Sw

Fig. 7- Oil-water relative permeability, water flooding

0.8
Kro, Krw

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Sw

Fig. 8- Oil-water relative permeability, bacteria flooding

10 R. ALMEHAIDEB & A. ZEKRI SPE 77796

Fig. 9- Bacteria partition into the oil droplets

Fig. 10- Bacteria spread inside the oil phase

Fig. 11- Bacteria surrounding piece of rock inside the water