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Nutrients and oxygen alter reservoir biochemical characters and enhance oil recovery during biostimulation

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Abstract

Biostimulation of petroleum reservoir to improve oil recovery has been conducted in a large number of oilfields. However, the roles and linkages of organic nutrients, inorganic salts and oxygen content during biostimulation have not been effectively elucidated. Therefore, we investigated the relationships between carbon source, nitrogen source, phosphorus source, oxygen content, and microbial stimulation, oil emulsification, and oil degradation. The organic nutrients (molasses) accelerated microbial growth, and promoted oil emulsification under aerobic conditions. The added molasses also promoted metabolites production (CO2, CH4 and acetic acid) and microbial anaerobic hydrocarbon degradation under anaerobic conditions. (NH4)2HPO4 improved gases production by neutralizing the acidic production and molasses. NaNO3 could also improve gases production by inhibiting sulfate-reducing bacteria to adjust pH value. Oxygen supply was necessary for oil emulsification, but bountiful supply of oxygen aggravated oil degradation, leading the entire ranges of alkanes and some aromatic hydrocarbons were degraded. Core-flooding experiments showed an oil displacement efficiency of 13.81 % in test with air package injected, 8.56 % without air package injection, and 4.77 % in control test with air package injection and 3.61 % without air package injection. The results suggest that the combined effect of organic nutrients, inorganic salts and oxygen content determines microbial growth, while production of metabolites, oil emulsification and biodegradation alter the reservoir biochemical characters and influence oil recovery during stimulation.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2009AA063502, 2013AA064402), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (50804024, 31000056) and the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin, China (09JCZDJC18000).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology and Technology, Ministry of Education, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Peike Gao, Guoqiang Li, Liubing Dai, Lingxia Zhao, Yuehua Chen & Ting Ma

  2. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Microbial Functional Genomics, College of Life Sciences, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Peike Gao, Guoqiang Li, Liubing Dai, Lingxia Zhao, Yuehua Chen & Ting Ma

  3. Research Institute of Experiment and Detection, Xinjiang Oilfield Co. Ltd., Karamay, 834000, China

    Xuecheng Dai & Hongbo Wang

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  1. Peike Gao
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  2. Guoqiang Li
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  4. Liubing Dai
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  8. Ting Ma
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Correspondence to Ting Ma.

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P. Gao and G. Li contributed equally to this paper.

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Gao, P., Li, G., Dai, X. et al. Nutrients and oxygen alter reservoir biochemical characters and enhance oil recovery during biostimulation. World J Microbiol Biotechnol 29, 2045–2054 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-013-1367-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11274-013-1367-4

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