Hanifah P.

Enhanced Oil recovery

There are three stages of oil recovery process employing mechanical, physical and chemical
methods.

The first stage is the primary recovery stage where the natural energy of the reservoir, mainly
reservoir pressure, is utilized. These natural driving forces include: water drive from the aquifer,
solution gas drive that results from gas evolving from oil as reservoir pressure decreases, gas cap
drive, rock and fluid expansion and others.
The next oil recovery stage is the secondary stage which takes place when the reservoir pressure
tends to fall and becomes insufficient to force the oil to the surface. In this stage, external fluids are
injected into the reservoir either to maintain the reservoir pressure or to displace the oil in the
reservoir. The usual fluids injected are water and CO2. While primary recovery stage produces
generally between 5-10% of the total oil reserves, recovery efficiencies in the secondary phase
varies from 30-40%.

Other oil recovery methods above depend on many economic and technological limitations.

Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR), on the other hand, has been proposed for many years
as a cheap and effective alternative to enhance oil recovery as its different processes generally do
not depend on oil prices.

Microorganisms and microbial products can be used to recover oil from reservoirs. To be
successful, the complexity of oil and the physical constraints in the reservoir must be taken into
account. The one of general approach is the use of microbial products, such as Xanthan gum, a
polysaccharide produced by Xanthomonas campestris. Basic aspects of petroleum engineering oil
recovery stages and microbial characteristics suitable for MEOR are introduced to better link the
two bioengineering technologies. Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) is one of the
technologies that can be potentially implemented with an exceptionally low operating cost. It has
several advantages compared to conventional EOR processes where it does not consume large
amounts of energy as do thermal processes, nor does it depend on the oil price as do many chemical
processes. MEOR is simply the process of utilizing microorganisms and their bio-products to
enhance the oil recovery. Bacteria are the only microorganisms used for MEOR by researchers due
to their small size, their production of useful metabolic compounds such as gases, acids, solvents,
biosurfactants, biopolymers as well as their biomass. Focusing on biopolymers, the proposed
processes of biopolymers are mainly selective plugging of high-permeability zones and thus
permeability modification of the reservoir to redirect the water flood to oil rich channels. Another
important process of biopolymers is their potential as mobility control agents by increasing the
viscosity of the displacing water hence improving the mobility ratio and sweep efficiency. One of
the biopolymers that is currently in commercial product and have been subjected to extensive
studies is the Xanthan gum. It is well known as a thermally stable polysaccharide. In addition, its
physical properties of viscosity, shear resistance, temperature and salt tolerance made it almost an
ideal polymer for use in EOR.

However, despite the positive and promising experimental and field tests results, it did not receive
wide spread attention in the oil industry due to several factors suggested by many researchers. One
 Hanifah P.D
major reason is the absence of standardized field results and post-trial analysis and the lack of
structured research methodology. Also, the inconsistent technical performance and lack of
understanding of the mechanism of oil recovery contributed to the fact that MEOR received little
interest in the petroleum industry. It is difficult to extrapolate the results from one microbial field
trial to other reservoirs as each reservoir has its unique properties and microbial population for
indigenous MEOR cases.

Works Cited
Al-Sulaimani, H., & Joshi, S. (2011). Microbial biotechnology for enhancing oil recovery: Current
developments and future prospects. Society fo Applied Biotechnology, 147-158.

Finnerty, W. R., & Singer, M. E. (1983). Microbial Enhancement of Oil Recovery. Biotechnology March ,
47-54.