MICROBIAL-ENHANCED

OIL RECOVERY

PRESENTED BY- OJASVINI

AHLUWALIA
UE161041
B.E. BIOTECH 4TH
YEAR
 hydrocarbon deposits and other organic materials. A type of fossil fuel, crude
Oil reserve
oil can be refined to produce usable products such as gasoline, diesel and
various forms of petrochemicals.
• Oilreserves denote the amount of crude oil that can be technically recovered at
a cost that is financially feasible at the present price of oil.
• It's based on the probability of finding reserves in certain geological areas.
• In 2018, there were 1.73 trillion barrels of oil in the world.
• The worlds five largest oil reserves by country:
1. Venezuela - 300,878 million barrels.
2. Saudi Arabia - 266,455 million barrels.
3. Canada - 169,709 million barrels.
4. Iran - 158,400 million barrels.
5. Iraq - 142,503 million barrels.
6. Kuwait - 101,500 million barrels
 Extraction of oil from
reserves
A steel pipe
Oil well is (casing) is placed
Geologist search
created by in the hole, to
for oil reserves
drilling a long provide structural
through seismic integrity to the
hole in the
surveys newly drilled well
ground.
bore

A collection of
Secondary valves called a is
recovery and Primary fitted to the top;
enhanced recovery the valves
recovery regulate pressures
and control flow.

3
Primary and secondary recovery
• Primary oil recovery refers to the process of extracting oil either via the
natural rise of hydrocarbons to the surface of the earth or via pump jacks
and other artificial lift devices.

• Only around 5% - 15% of the well’s potential are recovered from the
primary method

• Secondary recovery involves the injection of gas or water, which will

displace the oil, force it to move from its resting place and bring it to the
surface.

• This is typically successful in targeting an additional 30% of the oil’s

reserves.
 Enhanced oil recovery
Enhanced oil recovery (abbreviated EOR), also called tertiary recovery, is the extraction of crude
oil from an oil field that cannot be extracted otherwise. EOR can extract 30% to 60% or more of a
reservoir's oil compared to 20% to 40% using primary and secondary recovery.

There are three main types of enhanced oil recovery:

• Thermal Recovery. This is the most prevalent type of EOR in the USA and works by heating the oil
to reduce its viscosity and allowing easier flow to the surface. This is most commonly achieved by
introducing steam into the reservoir, which will work to heat the oil.

• Gas Injection. Either natural gas, nitrogen or carbon dioxide (increasingly the most popular option)
are injected into the reservoir to mix with the oil, making it more viscous, whilst simultaneously
pushing the oil to the surface.

• Chemical Injection. The least common method of EOR, chemical injection works by freeing trapped
oil in the well. This is done by lowering surface tension and increasing the efficiency of water-
flooding.
Microbial enhanced oil recovery
• Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) is a biological
based technology consisting in manipulating function or structure, or both,
of microbial environments existing in oil reservoirs

• The function of the MEOR method is to inject live microorganisms and

nutrients into a reservoir. Bacteria and their metabolic products are able to
mobilize the residual oil. If favourable bacteria already reside in the
reservoirs, it is feasible to inject nutrients only.

• This technique has the potential to be cost-efficient in the extraction of oil

remained trapped in capillary pores of the formation rock or in areas not
swept by the classical or modern enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods,
such as combustion, steams, miscible displacement, caustic surfactant-
polymers flooding, etc
 MEOR MECHANISMS
1. IFT Reduction

2. Selective plugging

3. Viscosity reduction

4. Biodegradation
 IFT Reduction

• Certain bacteria produce biosurfactants that reduce oil-water interfacial

tension (IFT).

• The residual oil is held in porous rocks by capillary pressure, which is

proportional to the IFT between oil and water.

• Biosurfactant produced by bacteria decreases the tension at the oil–water

interface, which eases oil to detach from the rock.

• The IFT between hydrocarbon and water is typically in the order of 30 to

40 mN/m. The biosurfactants must reduce IFT to below 0.4 mN/m to have
any effect on oil recovery.
• However, most IFT measurements with existence of biosurfactants are
above 1 mN/m.

• For the process that takes place in real reservoirs, the concentration of
biosurfactants is expected to be much lower because of dilution.

• As such, the effectiveness of IFT reduction may be limited in practice.

• Biosurfactant producing microbes Acinetobacter calcoacetius,

Arthrobacter parraffineus, Bacillus sp., Clostridium sp., Pseudomonas sp.
 Selective Plugging

• A porous rock contains pores of various sizes.

• When undergoing water flooding, larger pores receive most of the injected
water, while residual oil remains in the small pores without being swept.

• When bacteria flows in reservoir rocks, they also tend to enter large pores.

• Certain bacteria can generate biopolymers that plug the high-permeability

zones with large pores, thus forcing injected water to sweep the oil in low
permeability zones.

• In one test (Cheng et al., 2007), bacteria solution was injected into the
sandstone core, and 80% reduction in permeability was observed.
 Viscosity Reduction
• Certain bacteria produce gas and solvents in the reservoir, such as CO2.

• Gas and solvents can dissolve in crude oil and reduce crude oil viscosity.

• Lower oil viscosity leads to improved mobility ratio and oil recovery.

• The produced gas can also increase the reservoir pressure, which leads to a higher
production rate.

• Behlulgil and Mehmetoglu, 2002 observed that Clostridium acetobutylicum when

mixed with crude oil in a sealed cell increased the pressure in the cell, due to
generation of CO2 by the culture.

• The culture was able to reduce crude viscosity from about 80 cP before the test to
less than 50 cP after.

• However, the bacteria’s ability to produce gas is limited as tested in the laboratory.
It is unlikely that bacteria can generate large quantities of gas in underground
reservoirs.
 Wettability Alteration
• Rock wettability greatly influences the distribution of residual oil. In
water-wet sandstones, water is in contact with sand grains, and oil droplets
are in the center of the pore space.

• On the other hand, for oil-wet rocks, oil is in contact with grain surfaces
and remains in the small pores. In other words, water wettability is more
favorable for better oil recovery.

• In one study (Shabani et al., 2008), Berea sandstone cores were treated by
Rhodococcus sp. 094 solution was used to evaluate the rock wettability
before and after microbial treatments.

• It was discovered that after injection of bacteria solution, the originally

water-wet cores turned more water-wet.
 Biodegradation
Compounds of the types with chains of carbon atoms, either branched or straight, are
called paraffins.

All paraffins have the molecular formula CnH2n+2.

Paraffins with less than five carbon atoms are gases at ordinary temperatures. Paraffins
with five to fifteen carbon atoms are free-flowing liquids.

Paraffins with more than fifteen carbon atoms range from very thick, viscous liquids to
waxy solids. As the number of carbon atoms increases, so too does the number of
possible molecular structures resulting from their combination.

Certain bacteria are able to degrade crude oil, especially the paraffin contents in crude
oil.

When applied to the reservoir, bacteria can remove the paraffin deposit in the near
wellbore region, thus improving permeability and production rate.
Delivery of Bacteria to Reservoir

There are two methods to deliver the bacteria to the

reservoirs from production of inject wells:

1. Microbial huff and puff

2. Bacteria flooding
 Microbial huff and puff

• Bacteria solution is often injected into the reservoir through

production tubing in a producer.

• Nutrients can be injected after or simultaneously with bacteria.

• The well is then shut in for a certain period of time, usually from
several days to weeks.

• According to the mechanisms, some bacteria can produce acid,

solvent, or surfactant that helps to eliminate the debris in the near
wellbore region.

• Other bacteria can generate polymers to seal the high permeability

channels in porous media.
• After the well is put back to production, a higher production rate
may be observed.

• This process is often repeated several times to maximize the gain;

therefore, it is referred to as a microbial huff and puff operation, or
microbial huff and puff.
 Bacteria Flooding
• Bacteria and nutrients can also be injected into a reservoir from an injector, and a
normal water flooding operation is then resumed.

• Bacteria are carried deep into the reservoir with injected water.

• While being transported inside the reservoir, bacteria can produce surfactants that
improve the recovery of oil.

• Microbes can also plug the zones with high permeability and force water to sweep the
low permeability zones. This process is referred to as microbial flooding or bacteria
flooding.

• It can be seen that the difference is that for huff and puff operations, bacteria only treat
the near wellbore region of the producers, while bacteria flooding transports bacteria
deep into the reservoir. Huff and puff operations are more common in field
applications than bacteria flooding.

• This operation is rare compared with the two operations above, because the favorable
strains may not be able to compete with other colonies even when nutrition is supplied.
The favorable microbe is often injected to maximize their chance of dominating the
underground environment.
 Outcomes
So far, the outcomes of MEOR are explained based on two predominant rationales:

• Increment in oil production: This is done by modifying the interfacial properties of

the system oil-water-minerals, with the aim of facilitating oil movement
through porous media. In such a system, microbial activity affects fluidity
(viscosity reduction, miscible flooding); displacement efficiency (decrease
of interfacial tension, increase of permeability); sweep efficiency (mobility control,
selective plugging) and driving force (reservoir pressure).

• Reduce water cut: The indigenous microbes stimulated by the injected microbial
nutrients grow fast and selectively block the "thief zones", divert the injected water to
sweep the unswept oil.
 Advantages
• Injected microbes and nutrients are cheap; easy to handle in the field and
independent of oil prices.

• Economically: MEOR is attractive for mature oil fields before

abandonment. Moreover existing facilities require slight modifications.

• Low energy input requirement for microbes to produce MEOR agents.

• Microbial activity increases with microbial growth. This is opposite to

the case of other EOR additives in time and distance.

• Cellular products are biodegradable and therefore can be considered

environmentally friendly.
 Disadvantages
• The oxygen deployed in aerobic MEOR can act as corrosive agent on non
-resistant topside equipment and down -hole piping.

• Anaerobic MEOR requires large amounts of sugar limiting its

applicability in offshore platforms due to logistical problems.

• Exogenous microbes require facilities for their cultivation.

• Indigenous microbes need a standardized framework for evaluating

microbial activity, e.g. specialized coring and sampling techniques.

• Permeability, salinity and temperature restrictions.

• Potential health hazards: where possible mutations could occur resulting in

a pathogenic bacteria.
 References
1. H. Al-Sulaimani, S. Joshi, Y. Al-Wahaibi, S. Al-Bahry, A. Elshafie, A. Al-Bemani– 2011. Microbial biotechnology for
enhancing oil recovery: Current developments and future prospects.

2. C. H. Gao & A. Zekri (2011) Applications of Microbial-Enhanced Oil Recovery Technology in the Past Decade, Energy
Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 33:10, 972-989.

3. Aliya Yernazarova, Gulzhan Kayirmanova, Almagul Baubekova and Azhar Zhubanova1 Microbial Enhanced Oil
Recovery http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/64805.

4. Guseva UZ, Ovsyannikova VS, Svarovskaya LI, Altunina LK. Role of microorganisms during EOR.
http://www.ipc.tsc.ru/proekts/1/10/index.htm (in Russian).

5. Feng Z, Feng M,⋅Rongjiu S, Jie Z, Siqin H, Ying Z. Production of rhamnolipids by Pseudomonas aeruginosa is inhibited
by H2S but resumes in a co-culture with P. stutzeri: applications for microbial enhanced oil recovery. Biotechnology
Letters. 2015;37(9): 1803–1808. DOI: 10.1007/s10529-015-1859-4.

6. Liu, J., Ma, L., Mu, B., Liu, R., Ni, F., and Zhou, J. 2005. The field pilot of microbial enhanced oil recovery in a high
temperature petroleum reservoir. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 48:265–27

7. Makkar, R. S., and Cameotra, S. S. 1999. Structural characterization of a biosurfactant produced by Bacillus subtilis at
45ıC. J. Surf. Deter. 2:367–372.

8. I. Lazar, I. G. Petrisor & T. F. Yen (2007) Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR), Petroleum Science and
Technology, 25:11, 1353-1366.

9. Biji Shibulal, Saif N. Al-Bahry, Yahya M. Al-Wahaibi, Abdulkader E. Elshafie, Ali S. Al-Bemani, and Sanket J. Joshi,
“Microbial Enhanced Heavy Oil Recovery by the Aid of Inhabitant Spore-Forming Bacteria: An Insight Review,” The
Scientific World Journal, vol. 2014.

10. Haicheng She, Debin Kong, Yiqiang Li, Zaiqiang Hu, and Hu Guo, “Recent Advance of Microbial Enhanced Oil
Recovery (MEOR) in China,” Geofluids, vol. 2019.
Haicheng She, Debin Kong, Yiqiang Li, Zaiqiang Hu, and Hu Guo,
“Recent Advance of Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) in
China,” Geofluids, vol. 2019, Article ID 1871392,