Plugging High-Permeability Zones of Oil Reservoirs by Microbially Mediated Calcium Carbonate Precipitation

[Image: see text] Simple plugging of the high-permeability “thief zones” of oil reservoirs is the most plausible and also the most straightforwardly achievable approach to enhance sweep efficiency and oil recovery. Sporosarcina pasteurii is a representative microorganism with the ability to precipitate calcium carbonate (CaCO(3)) via enzymatic hydrolysis of urea in the presence of calcium ions. Microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) can cement and seal the granular and fractured media and thus can be used as a potential microbial plugging agent for the high-permeability zones of oil reservoirs. The following investigated the microscopic characteristics of MICP plugging and its efficacy in permeability reduction. The columns of near-spherical silica sand and angular silica sand with three separate granularities (40/60, 60/80, and 80/120 mesh) were used as artificial rock cores representing distinct pore sizes and pore characteristics to investigate the efficacy and microprocess of MICP plugging with different biotreatment periods. The results indicated that permeability is reduced significantly after only short periods of biotreatment. After eight cycles of MICP treatments, the permeability for each type of cores dropped by 54–90% of individual initial permeabilities. The measured CaCO(3) content indicated that the decreasing rate in permeability with the increasing CaCO(3) content experiences three contrasting stages, namely, slow decline, speedy decline, and plateauing. X-ray diffraction indicated that most of the generated CaCO(3) crystals occur as vaterite with only a small amount of calcite. Imaging by scanning electron microscopy further revealed the microprocess of MICP plugging. Microorganisms first concentrate on the pore wall to secrete CaCO(3), forming a thin and large uniform layer of CaCO(3). Then, some nucleation sites of CaCO(3) crystals will experience further preferential growth, resulting in large, dominant crystals that act as a plugging agent within the pore space. Compared to extracellular polymeric substances, which are currently the primary microbial plugging agent used to enhance sweep efficiency of oil reservoirs, bio-CaCO(3) appears more effective in plugging in terms of its morphology, size, and growth characteristics.