Case Study: The Application of metagenomics as a diagnostic tool for microbiologically influenced corrosion in an Egyptian oilfield

Abstract

Microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) is a major problem in the petroleum industry. Culture-based techniques such as most probable number (MPN) and isolation only reveal a very small data of the microorganisms present. By application of metagenomic analysis, the microbial community present in the sample has been identified, which helps in understanding what microorganisms are doing and even what they are capable of doing, by identifying their genomic and thus metabolic potential. For this reason, formation water samples were collected from an oil field production tank located in the North Bahrya Petroleum Company (NORPETCO) Egypt. The results revealed that the formation water sample has a high degree of microbial variation, where the phylum Proteobacteria was most dominant with 60% of total reads in the phylum level, and it was also overwhelmingly dominated by the family Desulfovibrionaceae and it was found to be about (53%) of total reads.