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Microbial Ecology of Oil Reservoir Souring and its Control by Nitrate Injection

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Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology

Abstract:

Oil reservoir souring is the production of hydrogen sulfide by sulfate-reducing microorganisms (SRM) in oil fields. Anaerobic respiration of sulfate is supported by various electron donors in petroleum reservoir ecosystems. Nitrate addition results in souring control by stimulating nitrate-reducing microorganisms (NRM) that directly or indirectly utilize petroleum-derived SRM electron donors. The oxidative capacity of nitrate for this process depends on NRM physiology and whether nitrate is metabolized to fully reduced end products or is partially reduced to nitrite. Production of nitrite is beneficial because it inhibits SRM. Oil companies use various microbiological surveillance tools to monitor the success of nitrate injection or other souring control strategies. SRM surveillance traditionally relies on cultivation-based testing but in recent years has expanded to include cultivation-independent molecular methods for detection and quantification of both harmful and beneficial oil reservoir microbes.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Joel Kostka and two anonymous reviewers for critical feedback that improved the manuscript. Financial support from the Max Planck Society is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany

    C. Hubert

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  1. Environmental Microbiology Laboratory, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Inhoffenstrasse 7, 38124, Braunschweig, Germany

    Kenneth N. Timmis (Professor) (Professor)

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Hubert, C. (2010). Microbial Ecology of Oil Reservoir Souring and its Control by Nitrate Injection. In: Timmis, K.N. (eds) Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77587-4_204

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