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Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery: Advances in Theory and Sustainable Applications
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Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery: Advances in Theory and Sustainable Applications

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2020) | Viewed by 10585

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Sanket J. Joshi

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Guest Editor
Deputy Director, Oil and Gas Research Center, and Central Analytical and Applied Research Unit, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman
Interests: energy and environment; enhanced oil recovery; microbial enhanced oil recovery; biofuels; surfactants; biosurfactants; biopolymers; gas transport; bioremediation; microbial biotechnology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Yuichi Sugai

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Guest Editor
Department of Earth Resources Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
Interests: enhanced oil recovery; enhanced gas recovery; carbon capture; utilization and storage; unconventional oil/gas production; drilling mud; shale oil/gas production; micromodel; simulation; core flooding experiment
Dr. Tamara Nazina

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Guest Editor
Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology (RAS), Laboratory of Petroleum Microbiology, Laureate of the Premium of Russia Government in Science and Technology, INMI, room 305, Russia
Interests: molecular biology and microbiology; methanogens; microbial, enhanced oil recovery; petroleum microbiology; bioremediation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Several renewable-energy based technologies have been developed and proposed to reduce our reliance on crude oil and its derivatives. However, still it lacks the cost-competitive edge with fossil fuels. Thus crude oil/fossil fuels and its derivatives still plays an immense role in day-to-day life. This leads petroleum industries for continuous-improved crude oil production and upgrading of oil recovery processes to ensure sustainable and economical outcomes in effective manner. Over the years different types of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques are developed to economically improve oil extraction and recovery yields. EOR processes are targeted for ~50% of the oil which still remains trapped in the reservoir after primary and secondary recovery stages. Different EOR technologies are employed worldwide, amongst which, chemicals based technologies are widely employed due to ease of application and availability. However, Microbial EOR (MEOR) processes are gaining attention due to their environmental friendly nature, ease and competitive cost of applications in petroleum industry. The concept of MEOR was first introduced in 1926, followed by few initial studies till 1940, and in 1954, the first MEOR field test was reported from the USA. Since then, an enormous amount of research has been carried out both at laboratory scale and several successful field-trials are also reported. Our understanding and the know-how of MEOR process vastly improved from contributions and team-work by geologists, microbiologists, engineers, environmental scientists, and others in recent years. Past few years were quite turbulent for petroleum industry with volatile oil prices. However, such desperate times always bring opportunities for improvements to ensure sustainable and effective processes. Apart from advanced chemical analytical techniques, integration of information technology (IT) and OMICS (molecular biology techniques) played an important role in advancements of understanding MEOR mechanisms, simulation/predictions and field scale applications.

The scope of this special issue of Sustainability is to cover and highlight several aspects of environmental-friendly MEOR processes, with a focus on theory and practices at both laboratory and field scales, current scientific knowledge and understanding of the process so far, economic bottlenecks and novel solutions for future implementations.

Dr. Sanket J. Joshi
Dr. Yuichi Sugai
Dr. Tamara Nazina
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • in-situ MEOR
  • ex-situ MEOR
  • extremophiles for MEOR
  • microbial products (biosurfactants, biopolymers)
  • microbial permeability profile modification: selective plugging
  • OMICS tools for identification of useful/harmful microbial flora
  • sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRBs) and field studies
  • production and application economics
  • mathematical modeling and simulation studies

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 2577 KiB  
Article
Simulation Study on Reservoir Souring Induced by Injection of Reservoir Brine Containing Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria
by Yuichi Sugai, Yukihiro Owaki and Kyuro Sasaki
Sustainability 2020, 12(11), 4603; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12114603 - 04 Jun 2020
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2508
Abstract
This paper examined the reservoir souring induced by the sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) inhabiting the reservoir brine of an oilfield in Japan. Although the concentration of sulfate of the reservoir brine was lower than that of seawater, which often was injected into oil reservoir [...] Read more.
This paper examined the reservoir souring induced by the sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) inhabiting the reservoir brine of an oilfield in Japan. Although the concentration of sulfate of the reservoir brine was lower than that of seawater, which often was injected into oil reservoir and induced the reservoir souring, the SRB inhabiting the reservoir brine generated hydrogen sulfide (H2S) by using sulfate and an electron donor in the reservoir brine. This paper therefore developed a numerical simulator predicting the reservoir souring in the reservoir into which the reservoir brine was injected. The results of the simulation suggested that severe reservoir souring was not induced by the brine injection; however, the SRB grew and generated H2S around the injection well where temperature was decreased by injected brine whose temperature was lower than that of formation water. In particular, H2S was actively generated in the mixing zone between the injection water and formation water, which contained a high level of the electron donor. Furthermore, the results of numerical simulation suggested that the reservoir souring could be prevented more surely by sterilizing the SRB in the injection brine, heating up the injection brine to 50 °C, or reducing sulfate in the injection brine. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery: Advances in Theory and Sustainable Applications)
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23 pages, 3201 KiB  
Article
The Potential Application of Microorganisms for Sustainable Petroleum Recovery from Heavy Oil Reservoirs
by Tamara Nazina, Diyana Sokolova, Denis Grouzdev, Ekaterina Semenova, Tamara Babich, Salimat Bidzhieva, Dmitriy Serdukov, Dmitriy Volkov, Konstantin Bugaev, Alexey Ershov, Marat Khisametdinov and Igor Borzenkov
Sustainability 2020, 12(1), 15; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su12010015 - 18 Dec 2019
Cited by 21 | Viewed by 3203
Abstract
A microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) technique was tested at low-temperature heavy oil reservoirs (Russia). The bioaugmentation approach used is based on the introduction of hydrocarbon-oxidizing bacteria into the oilfield in combination with an injection of oxygen as a H2O2 [...] Read more.
A microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) technique was tested at low-temperature heavy oil reservoirs (Russia). The bioaugmentation approach used is based on the introduction of hydrocarbon-oxidizing bacteria into the oilfield in combination with an injection of oxygen as a H2O2 solution in order to initiate the first stage of hydrocarbon oxidation and of (NH4)2HPO4 as a source of biogenic elements. Before the pilot trials, the microorganisms of petroleum reservoirs were investigated by high-throughput sequencing, as well as by culture-base and radioisotope techniques. Molecular studies revealed the differences in microbial composition of the carbonate and terrigenous oil reservoirs and the communities of injection and formation water. Aerobic bacteria Rhodococcus erythropolis HO-KS22 and Gordonia amicalis 6-1 isolated from oilfields oxidized oil and produced biosurfactants. Fermentative enrichment and pure cultures produced considerable amounts of low fatty acids and alcohols from sacchariferous substrates. In core-flooding tests, 43.0–53.5% of additional heavy oil was displaced by aerobic bacteria, producing biosurfactants, and 13.4–45.5% of oil was displaced by fermentative bacteria, producing low fatty acids, alcohols, and gas. A total of 1250 t additional oil was recovered as a result of the application of an MEOR technique at the Cheremukhovskoe heavy oil reservoir and Vostochno-Anzirskoe reservoir with light conventional oil. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery: Advances in Theory and Sustainable Applications)
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19 pages, 8424 KiB  
Article
Development of Coupled Biokinetic and Thermal Model to Optimize Cold-Water Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) in Homogenous Reservoir
by Eunji Hong, Moon Sik Jeong, Tae Hong Kim, Ji Ho Lee, Jin Hyung Cho and Kun Sang Lee
Sustainability 2019, 11(6), 1652; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11061652 - 19 Mar 2019
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 2780
Abstract
By incorporating a temperature-dependent biokinetic and thermal model, the novel method, cold-water microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR), was developed under nonisothermal conditions. The suggested model characterized the growth for Bacillus subtilis (microbe) and Surfactin (biosurfactant) that were calibrated and confirmed against the experimental [...] Read more.
By incorporating a temperature-dependent biokinetic and thermal model, the novel method, cold-water microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR), was developed under nonisothermal conditions. The suggested model characterized the growth for Bacillus subtilis (microbe) and Surfactin (biosurfactant) that were calibrated and confirmed against the experimental results. Several biokinetic parameters were obtained within approximately a 2% error using the cardinal temperature model and experimental results. According to the obtained parameters, the examination was conducted with several injection scenarios for a high-temperature reservoir of 71 °C. The results proposed the influences of injection factors including nutrient concentration, rate, and temperature. Higher nutrient concentrations resulted in decreased interfacial tension by producing Surfactin. On the other hand, injection rate and temperature changed growth condition for Bacillus subtilis. An optimal value of injection rate suggested that it affected not only heat transfer but also nutrient residence time. Injection temperature led to optimum reservoir condition for Surfactin production, thereby reducing interfacial tension. Through the optimization process, the determined optimal injection design improved oil recovery up to 53% which is 8% higher than waterflooding. The proposed optimal injection design was an injection sucrose concentration of 100 g/L, a rate of 7 m3/d, and a temperature of 19 °C. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery: Advances in Theory and Sustainable Applications)
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