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Use of Microorganisms in the Recovery of Oil From Recalcitrant Oil Reservoirs: Current State of Knowledge, Technological Advances and Future Perspectives

The depletion of oil resources, increasing global energy demand, the current low, yet unpredictable, price of oil, and increasing maturity of major oil fields has driven the need for the development of oil recovery technologies that are less costly and, where possible, environmentally compatible. Us...

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Autores principales: Nikolova, Christina, Gutierrez, Tony
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6978736/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32010082
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2019.02996
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author Nikolova, Christina
Gutierrez, Tony
author_facet Nikolova, Christina
Gutierrez, Tony
author_sort Nikolova, Christina
collection PubMed
description The depletion of oil resources, increasing global energy demand, the current low, yet unpredictable, price of oil, and increasing maturity of major oil fields has driven the need for the development of oil recovery technologies that are less costly and, where possible, environmentally compatible. Using current technologies, between 20 and 40% of the original oil in a reservoir can be extracted by conventional production operations (e.g., vertical drilling), with secondary recovery methods yielding a further 15–25%. Hence, up to 55% of the original oil can remain unrecovered in a reservoir. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a tertiary recovery process that involves application of different thermal, chemical, and microbial processes to recover an additional 7–15% of the original oil in place (OOIP) at an economically feasible production rate from poor-performing and depleted oil wells. EOR can significantly impact oil production, as increase in the recovery rate of oil by even a small margin could bring significant revenues without developing unconventional resources. Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) is an attractive, alternative oil recovery approach, which is claimed to potentially recover up to 50% of residual oil. The in situ production of biological surface-active compounds (e.g., biosurfactants) during the MEOR process does not require vast energy inputs and are not affected by global crude oil prices. Compared to other EOR methods, MEOR can be an economically and more environmentally friendly alternative. In this review, the current state of knowledge of MEOR, with insights from discussions with the industry and other stakeholders, is presented and in addition to the future outlook for this technology.
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spelling pubmed-69787362020-02-01 Use of Microorganisms in the Recovery of Oil From Recalcitrant Oil Reservoirs: Current State of Knowledge, Technological Advances and Future Perspectives Nikolova, Christina Gutierrez, Tony Front Microbiol Microbiology The depletion of oil resources, increasing global energy demand, the current low, yet unpredictable, price of oil, and increasing maturity of major oil fields has driven the need for the development of oil recovery technologies that are less costly and, where possible, environmentally compatible. Using current technologies, between 20 and 40% of the original oil in a reservoir can be extracted by conventional production operations (e.g., vertical drilling), with secondary recovery methods yielding a further 15–25%. Hence, up to 55% of the original oil can remain unrecovered in a reservoir. Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a tertiary recovery process that involves application of different thermal, chemical, and microbial processes to recover an additional 7–15% of the original oil in place (OOIP) at an economically feasible production rate from poor-performing and depleted oil wells. EOR can significantly impact oil production, as increase in the recovery rate of oil by even a small margin could bring significant revenues without developing unconventional resources. Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) is an attractive, alternative oil recovery approach, which is claimed to potentially recover up to 50% of residual oil. The in situ production of biological surface-active compounds (e.g., biosurfactants) during the MEOR process does not require vast energy inputs and are not affected by global crude oil prices. Compared to other EOR methods, MEOR can be an economically and more environmentally friendly alternative. In this review, the current state of knowledge of MEOR, with insights from discussions with the industry and other stakeholders, is presented and in addition to the future outlook for this technology. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-01-17 /pmc/articles/PMC6978736/ /pubmed/32010082 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2019.02996 Text en Copyright © 2020 Nikolova and Gutierrez. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Microbiology
Nikolova, Christina
Gutierrez, Tony
Use of Microorganisms in the Recovery of Oil From Recalcitrant Oil Reservoirs: Current State of Knowledge, Technological Advances and Future Perspectives
title Use of Microorganisms in the Recovery of Oil From Recalcitrant Oil Reservoirs: Current State of Knowledge, Technological Advances and Future Perspectives
title_full Use of Microorganisms in the Recovery of Oil From Recalcitrant Oil Reservoirs: Current State of Knowledge, Technological Advances and Future Perspectives
title_fullStr Use of Microorganisms in the Recovery of Oil From Recalcitrant Oil Reservoirs: Current State of Knowledge, Technological Advances and Future Perspectives
title_full_unstemmed Use of Microorganisms in the Recovery of Oil From Recalcitrant Oil Reservoirs: Current State of Knowledge, Technological Advances and Future Perspectives
title_short Use of Microorganisms in the Recovery of Oil From Recalcitrant Oil Reservoirs: Current State of Knowledge, Technological Advances and Future Perspectives
title_sort use of microorganisms in the recovery of oil from recalcitrant oil reservoirs: current state of knowledge, technological advances and future perspectives
topic Microbiology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6978736/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32010082
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2019.02996
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