Succession of microbial communities and changes of incremental oil in a post-polymer flooded reservoir with nutrient stimulation

• DOI: 10.1007/s00253-018-8766-2
• Publication Date: 2018-01-17T14:35:32Z
• Authors: Peike Gao; Guoqiang Li; Jianjun Le; Xiaobo Liu; Fang Liu; Ting Ma
• Keywords: DNA, Bacterial; 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; Bacteria; RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; Oil and Gas Industry; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Biota; DNA, Ribosomal; Phylogeny; Soil Microbiology; 6. Clean water

Further exploitation of the residual oil underground in post-polymer flooded reservoirs is attractive and challengeable. In this study, indigenous microbial enhanced oil recovery (IMEOR) in a post-polymer flooded reservoir was performed. The succession of microbial communities was revealed by high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA genes and changes of incremental oil were analyzed. The results indicated that the abundances of reservoir microorganisms significantly increased, with alpha diversities decreased in the IMEOR process. With the intermittent nutrient injection, microbial communities showed a regular change and were alternately dominated by minority populations: Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter significantly increased when nutrients were injected; Thauera, Azovibrio, Arcobacter, Helicobacter, Desulfitobacterium, and Clostridium increased in the following water-flooding process. Accompanied by the stimulated populations, higher oil production was obtained. However, these populations did not contribute a persistent level of incremental oil in the reservoir. In summary, this study revealed the alternative succession of microbial communities and the changes of incremental oil in a post-polymer flooded reservoir with intermittent nutrient stimulation process.