Variovorax paradoxus OT16, a potential bacterium for enhanced oil recovery

Understanding the fact that global demand for energy in the coming years will be at its highest level, need for a change in oil and gas engineering is felt to increase the productivity more than ever. Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) is a method that has been facilitated by the use of metabolites produced by microorganisms. Thepurpose of this study is to isolate and investigate the efficiency of potential microorganisms in improving oil recovery from reservoirs. In this research, the oil sludge was collected from Tabriz oil refinery and the effective bacteria were isolated. The superior isolate was identified by sequencing of 16SrRNA and compared with NCBI gene bank. The efficiency of MEOR was investigated at , heating times of 1 to 14 days with different amounts of bacterial inoculation using the syringe method. Upon completion of the mentioned times, for measuring the amount of oil recovery, 3mL of 5% brine solution was injected into the syringes and an adequate time was given to the oil to be extracted. Variovorax paradoxus OT16 was identified based on 16SrRNA sequencing and its effect on the MEOR process was investigated. For 1mL injection and heating time of 24 hours, the recovery factor was reached 98% which indicates a high efficiency for this bacterium. According to the tests, this isolate produced gas and acid and these two metabolites affect the physical and chemical properties of porous media in time and as a result improve oil recovery

کلیدواژه ها:

Microbial enhanced oil recovery ، Variovorax paradoxus ، Oil sludge