Microbial EOR: A Quantitative Prediction of Recovery Factor

Lacerda, Eduarda Cm Da Silva; Priimenko, Viatcheslav; Pires, Adolfo P.

doi:10.2118/153866-ms

Cited by 12 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…For the nutrients consumed for bacteria, we consider the yield coefficient Y n , which we included in the R n term. In the absence of IFA, one relation for the production rate of surfactants is given by [23]…”

Section: Transport Equationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling and Simulation of Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery Including Interfacial Area

2017

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The focus of this paper is the derivation of a non-standard model for microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) that includes the interfacial area (IFA) between the oil and water. We consider the continuity equations for water and oil, a balance equation for the oil-water interface and advective-dispersive transport equations for bacteria, nutrients and surfactants. Surfactants lower the interfacial tension (IFT), which improves the oil recovery. Therefore, we include in the model parameterizations of the IFT reduction and residual oil saturation as a function of the surfactant concentration. We consider for the first time in context of MEOR, the role of IFA in enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The motivation to include the IFA in the model is to reduce the hysteresis in the capillary pressure relationship, include the effects of observed bacteria migration towards the oil-water interface and biological production of surfactants at the oil-water interface. An efficient and robust linearization scheme was implemented, in which we use an implicit scheme that considers a linear approximation of the capillary pressure gradient, resulting in an efficient and stable scheme. A comprehensive, 2D implementation based on two-point flux approximation (TPFA) has been achieved. Illustrative numerical simulations are presented. We give an explanation of the differences in the oil recovery profiles obtained when we consider the IFA and MEOR effects. The model can also be used to design new experiments in order to gain a better understanding and optimization of MEOR.Among the various sources of energy, oil remains as one of the most valuable ones, considering its extensive use in the daily life, such as in the production of gasoline, plastic, etc. After discovering a petroleum reservoir, one can extract about 15-50% of the oil by using and maintaining the initial pressure in the reservoir through water flooding (first and second phase oil recovery); however, 50-85% of oil remains in the reservoir after this, so called conventional recovery [34]. This is the motivation for developing new extraction techniques in order to recover the most oil possible. One of these EOR techniques consists of adding bacteria to the reservoirs and using their bioproducts and effects to improve the oil production, which is called MEOR. Besides all MEOR experiments [3,16], it is worth pointing out that MEOR has been already used successfully in oil reservoirs [24,34]. Nevertheless, the MEOR technology is not yet completely understood and there is a strong need for reliable mathematical models and numerical tools to be used for optimizing MEOR.The bioproducts formed due to microbial activity are acids, biomass, gases, polymers, solvents and surfactants [41]. The main purpose of using microbes (bacteria) is to modify the fluid and rock properties in order to enhance the oil recovery. These microbes and the produced surfactants have the advantage to be biodegradable, temperature tolerant, pH-hardy, non-harmful to humans and lower concentrations of them can produ...

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Section: Transport Equationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling and Simulation of Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery Including Interfacial Area

2017

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“…Numerical modeling has been used to attempt the quantitative prediction of the performance of the MEOR process [73]. A study conducted by Eduarda et al [79] in which a finite difference method was applied, indicated that appropriate bacterial growth within the reservoir is the determining variable affecting the oil recovery factor.…”

Section: Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (Ceor) -A Practical Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery

Yernazarova¹,

Kayirmanova²,

Baubekova³

et al. 2016

Chemical Enhanced Oil Recovery (cEOR) - A Practical Overview

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The ever-rising global demand for energy and the issue of large volumes of unrecovered oil after primary and secondary oil production operations are driving the development and/or advancement of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques. Conventional EOR processes include thermal, immiscible and miscible gas injection, chemical, and microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR), among others. This chapter provides an overview of MEOR including its history, strata microflora, mechanisms of MEOR for oil recovery, and a brief recount of field MEOR applications.

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“…For the relative permeability curves for oil k ro and water k rw , the Corey correlations are used [38]: (37) where s w is water saturation, k rowi is the endpoint relative permeability for oil (at s wi ), k rwor is the endpoint relative permeability for water (at 1−s or ), s wi is the initial water saturation, s * or is the residual oil saturation, and the exponents for water and oil are a and b, respectively.…”

Section: Appendix Basis For Sigmoidal Curves For Sporulation and Reacmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…MEOR models have been developed with different selections of mechanisms of bacterial actions [10,14,37,40,51]. However, as mentioned earlier, the main contribution to the additional oil recovery originates from in situ surfactant production and the selective plugging effect.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microbial enhanced oil recovery—a modeling study of the potential of spore-forming bacteria

2015

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Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) utilizes microbes for enhancing the recovery by several mechanisms, among which the most studied are the following: (1) reduction of oil-water interfacial tension (IFT) by the produced biosurfactant and (2) selective plugging by microbes and metabolic products. One of the ways of bacterial survival and propagation under harsh reservoir conditions is formation of spores. A model has been developed that accounts for bacterial growth, substrate consumption, surfactant production, attachment/filtering out, sporulation, and reactivation. Application of spore-forming bacteria is an advantageous novelty of the present approach. The mathematical setup is a set of 1D transport equations involving reactions and attachment. Characteristic sigmoidal curves are used to describe sporulation and reactivation in response to substrate concentrations. The role of surfactant is modification of the relative permeabilities by decreasing the interfacial tension. Attachment of bacteria reduces the pore space available for flow, i.e., the effective porosity and permeability. Clogging of specific areas may occur. An extensive study of the MEOR on the basis of the developed model has resulted in the following conclusions. In order to obtain sufficient local concentrations of surfactant, substantial amounts of substrate should be supplied; however, massive growth of bacteria increases the risk for clogging at the well inlet areas, causing injectivity loss. In such areas, starvation may cause sporulation, reducing the risk of clogging. Substrate released during sporulation can be utilized by attached vegetative bacteria and they will continue growing and producing surfactant, which prolongs the effect of the injected substrate. The simulation scenarios show that application of the spore-forming bacteria gives a higher total production of surfactant and the reduced risk of clogging, leading to an increased period of production and a higher oil recovery.

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Microbial EOR: A Quantitative Prediction of Recovery Factor

Cited by 12 publications

References 35 publications

Modeling and Simulation of Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery Including Interfacial Area

Modeling and Simulation of Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery Including Interfacial Area

Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery

Microbial enhanced oil recovery—a modeling study of the potential of spore-forming bacteria

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