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.enhanced water floods through stimulating microbial activity by injecting selected nutrients and sometimes indigenous microbes.
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 ultimate aim of MEOR is to improve the recovery of oil entrapped in porous media while increasing economic profits. MEOR is a tertiary oil extraction technology allowing the partial recovery of the commonly residual two-thirds of oil, thus extending the life of mature oil reservoirs.
MEOR is a multidisciplinary field incorporating, among others: geology, chemistry, microbiology, fluid mechanics, petroleum engineering, environmental engineering and chemical engineering. The microbial processes proceeding in MEOR can be classified according to the oil production problem in the field.
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.
The aforementioned two rationals are demonstrated in a Youtube video prepared by New Aero Technology LLC