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Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) technologies have become established as cost-effective solutions for declining oil production. The demonstrated versatility of microorganisms can be used to design advanced microbial systems to treat multiple production problems in complex, heterogeneous reservoirs. This research project presents the concept of a combined microbial surfactant-polymer system for advanced oil recovery. The surfactant-polymer system utilizes bacteria that are capable of both biosurfactant production and metabolically-controlled biopolymer production. This article describes the results of our laboratory work to grow microbial cultures and the work done on recovery experiments on core rocks. A bacterial strain capable of producing both surfactant and polymers has been selected. Laboratory experiments to determine under what conditions surfactants and polymers can be produced from one single strain have been conducted. Recovery experiments to determine the performance of these strains under different conditions have been carried out. Experimental results show a significant influence of nutrient regime on alternate production of surfactants or polymers for a Bacillus licheniformis strain, NIPER 1A. |
