Microbial Two-Step Process for Enhanced Oil Recovery
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current oil recovery methods, such as primary and secondary recovery, are inefficient in extracting a significant portion of oil from reservoirs due to low permeability and uneven distribution of fluids, leading to uneconomical operations and leaving 60-70% of oil trapped.
Innovation Solution
The use of microbe-based products comprising beneficial microbes and their metabolites, including biosurfactants, biopolymers, and enzymes, to enhance oil recovery by selectively plugging high permeability zones, repressurizing formations, and altering oil properties, allowing for deeper penetration and mobilization of residual oil.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If water flooding is used for secondary oil recovery, then reservoir repressurization and oil displacement are achieved, but injected fluids flow preferentially along highly permeable layers, bypassing oil-saturated areas and reducing oil to water ratio
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by using biopolymers produced by microorganisms to selectively modify the properties of highly permeable zones. The biopolymers accumulate in high permeability areas, increasing their viscosity and reducing their permeability, thereby creating local heterogeneity that redirects fluid flow to previously bypassed low permeability oil-saturated zones.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces microorganisms as intermediaries that naturally produce biopolymers within the reservoir. These biopolymers act as mediators that modify fluid flow characteristics by increasing viscosity and plugging high permeability channels, thereby improving the overall distribution of injected fluids without direct chemical injection.
2Productivity
If injected water quantity is increased to maintain oil production, then oil displacement continues, but the ratio of oil to water decreases and it becomes uneconomical to continue the process
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by modifying the rheological properties of the injected fluid through microbial biopolymers. The biopolymers increase the viscosity of the injected water, improving its mobility ratio and displacement efficiency, which allows maintaining oil production rates with reduced water injection quantities, thereby improving the oil to water ratio.
3Productivity
If microbial products are injected to enhance oil recovery, then multiple mechanisms of wellbore stimulation are activated and oil recovery increases, but the complexity of the treatment process increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies self-service by introducing microorganisms that autonomously produce the required biopolymers within the reservoir environment. The microorganisms metabolize injected substrates and naturally synthesize biopolymers that perform the desired functions of viscosity enhancement and permeability modification, eliminating the need for complex external polymer injection systems and reducing treatment complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach effectively increases oil recovery by activating multiple mechanisms of wellbore stimulation, improving permeability, and reducing interfacial tension, leading to extended periods of enhanced oil production with minimal environmental impact and cost-effectiveness.
Implementation Method 1
Microbially produced surfactants, i.e., biosurfactants reduce the interfacial tension between water and oil and, therefore, a lower hydrostatic pressure is required to move the liquid entrapped in the pores to overcome the capillary effect
Implementation Method 2
In microbial enhanced water flooding, biopolymer-producing microbes are injected into a well. Their biopolymer growth by-products, as well as the biomass, can then act to selectively plug the high permeability zones of the formation.
Implementation Method 3
The microbial processes proceeding in MEOR can be classified according to the oil production problem in the field: well bore clean-up removes mud and other debris blocking the channels where oil flows; well stimulation improves the flow of oil from the drainage area into the well bore; and enhanced water floods increase microbial activity by injecting selected microbes and sometimes nutrients
Implementation Method 4
a lower hydrostatic pressure is required to move the liquid entrapped in the pores to overcome the capillary effect
Data Source
AI summary
The subject invention relates to methods for post-primary oil recovery that utilize multiple mechanisms of action, wherein biochemical-producing microbes are injected into an oil well in a certain predetermined order, based on, for example, the metabolites and by-products they are capable of producing. Preferably, gas-, acid- and/or solvent-producing microbe such as a Clostridium bacterium, is injected into the well first, followed by a biosurfactant and/or biopolymer-producing microbe, such as Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus licheniformis and/or a combination thereof.