Nutrient optimization for indigenous microbial consortia of a Bhagyam oil field: MEOR studies

Neha Sharma; Meeta Lavania; Vatsala Koul; Dhruva Prasad; Nitish Koduru; Amitabh Pandey; Rahul Raj; M Suresh Kumar; Banwari Lal

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2023.1026720

Nutrient optimization for indigenous microbial consortia of a Bhagyam oil field: MEOR studies

Front Microbiol. 2023 Mar 16:14:1026720. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1026720. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Neha Sharma¹, Meeta Lavania¹, Vatsala Koul¹, Dhruva Prasad², Nitish Koduru², Amitabh Pandey², Rahul Raj², M Suresh Kumar², Banwari Lal¹

Affiliations

¹ Microbial Biotechnology, Environmental and Industrial Biotechnology Division, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi, India.
² Cairn Oil and Gas, Vedanta Limited, ASF Center, Gurugram, India.

Abstract

The microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) method is an eco-friendly and economical alternative technology. The technology involves a variety of uncertainties, and its success depends on controlling microbial growth and metabolism. This study is one of a kind that showed successful tertiary recovery of crude oil through indigenous microbial consortia. In this study, a medium was optimized to allow ideal microbial growth under reservoir conditions through RSM. Once the nutrient recipe was optimized, the microbial metabolites were estimated through gas chromatography. The maximum amount of methane gas (0.468 mM) was produced in the TERIW174 sample. The sequencing data set showed the presence of Methanothermobacter sp. and Petrotoga sp. In addition, these established consortia were analyzed for their toxicity, and they appeared to be safe for the environment. Furthermore, a core flood study showed efficient recovery that was ~25 and 34% in TERIW70 and TERIW174 samples, respectively. Thus, both the isolated consortia appeared to be suitable for the field trials.

Keywords: GC-MS; RSM; core flood test; microbial enhanced oil recovery; pathogenicity assay.