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1. MICROBIAL ENHANCED OIL
RECOVERY
Presented by ‘ M.Phool Badshah ‘

2. INTRODUCTION
• Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) is a technology
which can recover more oil at low cost.
• This positive statement should excite the oil industry and the
nation since the American Petroleum Institute reports that
the U. S. production declined by half a million barrels a day in
1989, twice the decline experienced in the previous two
years.
• This decrease in production caused the nation's dependency
on imported oil to rise to 54% of demand in January 1990,
which breaks the record set in 1977 at the peak of the energy
crisis.
• With oil prices still too low to encourage increased exploration
and drilling, the oil import level is expected to increase even
more, which in turn will increase our trade deficit.

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• This means the oil industry desperately needs a technology
now that will effectively release and recover more oil from
our known oil reserves.
• MEOR is a field-tested technology that can fill this need and is
a "near term" solution for recovering oil before the
abandonment of our oil fields.

4. TECHNOLOGY NEEDS :
• Over 500 billion barrels of oil-in-place have been discovered in
the U. S. of which 145 billion barrels have been produced
through 1987.
• Proved reserves that can be produced by present technology
and at current oil prices are about 27 billion barrels leaving
nearly 2/3 of the discovered oilabout 340 billion barrels-
remaining in known reservoirs at the conclusion of
conventional production.
• This enormous oil potential is the target for improved oil
recovery technologies which must include MEOR.
• Just as important as the massive amount of oil which remains
unrecovered is the fact that such remaining oil faces mass
abandonment at current oil price levels. At current prices, the
U.S. is plugging and abandoning its marginal producing wells
at a rapid and increasing rate.

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• The abandonment of stripper wells has increased 175% since
1980, and it is estimated that at $16/bbl, fully 2/3 of the
domestic oil resources could be abandoned by 1995.
• As the wells are abandoned, the access to the oil and any
practical prospect of applying future cost-effective
technologies is lost, since all techniques for producing the oil
requires existing wells for implementing any recovery
technology.
• It is economically unrealistic to consider redrilling wells to
apply a technology. This means that within 15-20 years the U.
S. could have access to less than 25% of its remaining known
oil resources.
• A new recovery technology is required to unlock the
enormous potential of the remaining mobile and immobile oil
resources. The magnitude of this potential can be cited from a
survey of reservoirs in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

6. MEOR HISTORY :
• MEOR is a technology that has a history based on over 60
years of research and field studies.
• In spite of this long history of MEOR investigations, the results
which lead to the development of the technology have gone
unrecognized by industry.
• This lack of industrial awareness has occurred for several
reasons.
• In many cases the research and field information has been
presented in fragmented pieces in obscure foreign
publications or in journals of biological sciences which
remained unavailable or unread by workers in the oil industry.
• In addition, MEOR requires the awareness and interactions of
many scientific disciplines, each of which approaches the
introduction and operation of this technology differently.

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• The petroleum microbiologist views it from a biological
perspective while the reservoir engineer, owner-operator, and
economist have different perspectives and objectives.
• A cohesive and comprehensive picture of MEOR technology
has been difficult to present to the oil industry because of the
many disciplines, applications, and situations involved its
development.
• It is now time to bring together these different perspectives
and it is our responsibility to inform the oil industry that
MEOR could be the answer to their needs for a cost-effective
oil recovery technology.
• The work being presented at this meeting has been built on
the base of all the preceding research and field studies. It is
important that this point be stressed since MEOR is still
considered by the oil industry to be technology that is new,
untested, and only of research interest.

8. MEOR TECHNOLOGY
• MEOR technologies have the common basis of introducing or
stimulating viable microorganisms in an oil reservoir for the
purpose of enhancing oil recovery.
• However, this broad generic definition of MEOR has lead to
some confusion since MEOR is not a single methodology but is
a broader technology which can be designed for different and
selective applications.
• A list of the major application areas of MEOR will show the
diversity and scope of the technology. Each of these proposed
applications may employ different microbial cultures which
have different requirements for their introduction and growth
in the reservoir.

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• The application, conditions, and cultures can be targeted to
meet a particular oil recovery situation. It is convenient to
divide the MEOR technology into the following application
groups:
1-Single well stimulations
2-MEOR water floods
3-Paraffin removal
4-Viscosity modification
5-Water diversion
6-Heavy oil modification
Applications of MEOR Technologies :

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• MEOR discussions should be directed to the specific applications
and methodology to be employed to prevent misunderstanding in
comparisons and evaluations of the test results.
• In addition to this classification of MEOR technologies, each of the
mentioned applications can be further divided by identifying the
microbial mechanism which is proposed or best suited for each
application.
• The classification of the MEOR technologies by the proposed oil
releasing mechanism shows the range of microbial effects which
can be identified or expected to occur and to which the MEOR
systems can be directed.
• Thus, MEOR is a multi-application technology based on known oil
releasing mechanisms which has matured from the generalized
approaches associated with the early investigations.

11. MEOR Oil Release Mechanisms :
• This means that MEOR offers the field operator a wide
diversity of oil releasing options, each designed to function in
different problem areas.
1-Gas generation
2-Acid production
3-Surfactant production .
4-Physical oil displacement
5-Biopolymer production .
6-Hydrocarbn modifcation
7-Viscosity modification

12. MEOR Field Test Results and Observations :
• Microorganisms can grow under normal reservoir conditions.
• Microorganisms will migrate through reservoirs.
• The rate and extent of microbial penetration depend on
reservoir characteris tics.
• Microbial numbers and products respond to nutrient
availability.
• Microbial products are produced in the reservoir and
influence the reservoir fluids and characteristics.
• Microbial types which are established or stimulated in the
reservoir will depend on inoculum, nutrients, and reservoir
conditions.

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• The microbial consortium that will dominate the reservoir is
dependent on nutrient and reservoir conditions.
• While MEOR technologies have broad applications, each
MEOR test must be designed for a specific reservoir.
• MEOR projects require close cooperation and coordination
between microbiologists and reservoir engineers.
• In addition, it is expected that if the correct oil releasing
chemicals or mechanisms are activated or produced by the
microbial growth, then oil should be released or recovered in
the same manner as proposed by conventional EOR
technology.