MICROBIAL ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY

(MEOR)
 MICROBIAL ENHANCED OIL
RECOVERY (MEOR)
•Microbial enhanced oil recovery is a collection of techniques that utilizes microorganisms
and their metabolic products to improve the recovery of crude oil from reservoir rock.

•Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) a technologies that can be implemented with a
low operating cost. With a reported cost of 2-6 $/bbl per incremental barrel.

•It has several advantages compared to conventional EOR processes where it

does not consume large amounts of energy as do thermal processes, nor does it
depend on the oil price as do many chemical processes.
 MICROBES
Only bacteria are considered promising candidates for MEOR. Molds, yeast ,algae and
protozoa are not suitable due to their size and instability to grow under the
conditions present in the reservoir.

Microbes can be classified in terms of their oxygen intake into three main
classifications
aerobes: where the growth depends on a plentiful supply of oxygen to make
cellular energy.
Strictly anaerobes: by contrast, which are sensitive to even low concentration
of oxygen and are found in deep oil reservoirs.
facultative microbes: which can grow either in the presence or reduced
concentration of oxygen.
 Anaerobic bacteria
This favorability of bacteria is due to:
(1) Their small cell size makes it easier for them to penetrate through the
reservoir’s porous media .
(2)Their ability to tolerate harsh environments similar to those in the
subsurface reservoirs in terms of pressure, temperature, pH.
(3) Their production of useful metabolic compounds which be discussed later.

The microorganisms that are most commonly used for MEOR field processes
are species of Bacillus and Clostridium.
Clostridium species produce surfactants, gases, alcohols and solvents, while
Bacillus species produce surfactants, acids, and some gases. There are also
Bacillus species that produce polymers.
 SOURCES OF BACTERIA
There are many sources from which bacterial species that are MEOR candidates can be
isolated.
Depending on the place of extraction, bacteria sources are divided to:
(1)- Indigenous, which is the reservoir itself.
(2)- Exogenous, from external source.
suggested four main sources that are suitable for bacterial isolation.
These are:
(1)- formation waters.
(2)- Sediments from formation water purification plants (gathering stations).
(3)- Sludge from biogas operations and effluents from sugar refineries.
(4)- Oil contaminated soil could be used as a good source of microbes isolation
for MEOR.
 The nutrients
Nutrients are the largest expense in the MEOR processes where fermentation
medium can represent almost 30% of the cost for a microbial fermentation .
The microbes require mainly three components for growth and metabolic
productions
1- Carbon.
2- Nitrogen.
3- Phosphorous.
Media optimization is very important since the types of bio-products that are
produced by different types of bacteria are highly dependent on the types,
concentrations and components of the nutrients provided.
Sometimes, cheap raw materials are also used as nutrients such as:
molasses, cheese whey, beef extract and others that contain all the necessary
nutritional components.
 THE BIO-PRODUCTS
• Microorganisms produce a variety of metabolites that are potentially
useful for oil recovery .
There are six main bio products or metabolites produced by microbes
Biomass:
• Bacteria are known to grow very fast as some are reported to multiply
every 20 minutes under aerobic conditions. This forms a biomass of
microbe cells in the porous medium.
They are used for selective plugging and permeability modification.
Bio-surfactants:
They are amphipatic molecules with both hydrophilicand hydrophobic
parts which are produced by variety of microorganisms .
They have the ability to reduce the surface and interfacial tension.
COND…
• Biopolymers:
These are polysaccharides which are secreted by many strains of
bacteria mainly to protect them against temporary desiccation and
predation as well as to assist in adhesion to surfaces.
The proposed processes of biopolymers are mainly selective
plugging of high permeability zones and thus permeability
modification of the reservoir to redirect the water flood to oil rich
channels.
Another important process of biopolymers is their potential as
mobility control agents by increasing the viscosity of the displacing
water hence improving the mobility ratio and sweep efficiency.
COND…
• Bio-Solvents:
Sometimes solvents can also be produced as one of the metabolites of the
microbes. These include ethanol, acetone and butanol. They may also help
in reduction of oil viscosity and can also contribute as a co-surfactant in
reducing the interfacial tension between oil and water.
Bio-Acids:
Some bacteria when given certain nutrients can produce acids such as
lacticacid, acetic acid and butyric acid. These acids can be useful in
carbonate reservoirs or sandstone formations cemented by carbonates,
since it can cause dissolution of the carbonate rockand hence improve its
porosity and permeability.
Production of organic acids by bacteria is a normal phase of anaerobic
fermentation of sugars. Clostridium sp., for example, can produce 0.0034
molesof acid per kilogram of molasses.
COND..
Biogases:
Bacteria can ferment carbohydrates to produce gases such as
carbon dioxide, hydrogen and methane gas. These gases can
be used for enhancing oil recovery by exploiting the
mechanisms of reservoir re-pressurization and oil swelling and
viscosity reduction. These gases can contribute to the pressure
build-up in pressure depleted reservoirs.
Some of the reported gas-producing genera are
Clostridium,Desulfovibrio, Pseudomonas and certain
methanogens. Methanogens produce about 60% methane and
40% carbon dioxide where the methane will partition between
oil and gas phase while carbon dioxide will partition to the
water phase as well and hence improve the mobility of oil.
Microbial bioproducts and their producing
microbes
 MEOR Mechanisms
These mechanism solves production problems such as: Formation damage, low oil relative
permeability, trapped oil due to capillary forces, poor sweep efficiency, channeling,
unfavorable mobility ratio, low sweep efficiency, souring, water or gas coning.
The main mechanisms are
(1) permeability modification: The formation of biomass can plug preferential flow paths and
increase a reservoir’s sweep efficiency by diverting flow to alternate paths.
(2) Reduction of Interfacial tension.
(3) Wettability alteration: Microorganisms can colonize reservoir rock and form biofilm that
has wetting properties significantly different than the existing reservoir rock, thus, a
reservoir’s wettability can change to a more water-wet or more oil-wet condition depending
on the nature of the biofilm.
(4) Gas production: re-pressurize the reservoir and reduce oil viscosity.
(5) Oil degradation: microorganisms can utilize crude oil as a carbon source and effectively
reduce oil viscosity.
(6) Mobility modification: by increase water viscosity thereby increasing sweep efficiency.
(7) Well stimulation: wellbore clean up, acidizing .. etc.
(8) Control of unwanted bacteria such as sulfate reducers by competition on nutrients
Microbial Products, Their Role In Enhanced Oil Recovery
 MEOR Processes
There are two processes for MEOR depending on the site of the
bioproducts production . These are namely in situ and ex
situ processes:
(1)- In Situ Process:
involves producing the bacterial bioproducts inside the
reservoir (figure ).
This can be done either by:
(a)-Stimulating the indigenous reservoir microbes.
(b)- Injecting specially selected consortia of bacteria
(exogenous microbes). That will produce specific metabolic
products in the reservoir.
Figure : in situ MEOR process
COND..
2: Ex Situ Process:
In turn, involves the production of the
bioproducts at the surface outside the reservoir.
Then injecting them separately either with or
without the separation of the bacterial cells.
In this case, commercial size bio-reactors are
needed to scale-up the production of the
desired metabolite for field applications. Figure
shows an ex situ biopolymer flooding.
Figure: ex situ polymer flooding
Cond..
According to the type of the process MEOR treatments are
classified to
1- Well stimulation.
2- Wellbore cleanup.
3- chemical flooding.
4- Permeability modification.
5- Polymer flooding.
6- Mitigation of coning.
These classification and their corresponding production
problems and type of microorganism used are explained in
table below.
classification of MEOR treatments
 According to the injection method MEOR is
classified to
1-Cyclic MEOR (Huff And Puff):
Where the MEOR solution is pumped down the well, displaced by a fluid (usually
lease brine 2-3% KCL water). The well is shut in for a period of time(usually
ranges from 24 hours to 7 days) before it returned to production asshown in
figure.
This treatment procedure is repeated once every 3-6 months period.
2-Microbial Flooding:
Where MEOR can be added to existing water floods to improve their
performance. In this process MEOR materials are added either periodically or
continuously,as shown in figure (2.4).
The biological material are then transported into the reservoir within the
injection water or in a form of a slug in front of the water.
Little or no modification to the existing water injection systems is required.
Figure : cyclic microbial recovery
Figure : microbial flooding
 MEOR advantages
The most outstanding advantages of MEOR over other EOR technologies are listed
below(Lazar, 2007):
1. The injected bacteria and nutrient are inexpensive and easy to obtain and handle in
the field.
2. Microbial cell factories need little input of energy to produce the MEOR agents.
3. Since the injected fluids are not petrochemicals, their costs are not dependent on
the global crude oil price.
Cond…
4. MEOR processes are particularly suited for carbonate oil
reservoirs where some EOR
technologies cannot be applied efficiently.
5. The effects of bacterial activity within the reservoir are
improved by their growth with time, while in EOR
technologies the effects of the additives tend to
decrease with time and distance from the injection well.
6. MEOR products are all biodegradable and will not be
accumulated in the environment, therefore are
environmentally compatible.
 MEOR problems
MEOR techniques face some common problems that are outlined as follows
(Lazar, 2007):
1. Injectivity lost due to microbial plugging of the wellbore—to avoid wellbore
plugging, some actions must be taken such as filtration before injection, avoid
biopolymers production, and minimize microbial adsorption to rock surface by
using dormant cell forms, spores, or ultra-micro-bacteria.
2. Dispersion or transportation of all necessary components to the target zone.
3. Optimization of the desired in-situ metabolic activity due to the effect of
variables such as pH, temperature, salinity, and pressure for any in-situ MEOR
operation.
4. Isolation of microbial strains, adaptable to the extreme reservoir conditions of
pH, temperatures, pressure and salinity .
5. Low in-situ concentration of bacterial metabolites; the solution to this problem
might be the application of genetic engineering techniques.