Microbial Methane Production Associated with Carbon Steel Corrosion in a Nigerian Oil Field.

Jaspreet Mand,Leo Chiejina,Seun Smith,Gerrit Voordouw,Chuma Okoro,Hyung S Park,Bart P Lomans

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2015.01538

Jaspreet Mand, Leo Chiejina + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2015.01538

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Abstract

Microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) in oil field pipeline systems can be attributed to many different types of hydrogenotrophic microorganisms including sulfate reducers, methanogens and acetogens. Samples from a low temperature oil reservoir in Nigeria were analyzed using DNA pyrotag sequencing. The microbial community compositions of these samples revealed an abundance of anaerobic methanogenic archaea. Activity of methanogens was demonstrated by incubating samples anaerobically in a basal salts medium, in the presence of carbon steel and carbon dioxide. Methane formation was measured in all enrichments and correlated with metal weight loss. Methanogens were prominently represented in pipeline solids samples, scraped from the inside of a pipeline, comprising over 85% of all pyrosequencing reads. Methane production was only witnessed when carbon steel beads were added to these pipeline solids samples, indicating that no methane was formed as a result of degradation of the oil organics present in these samples. These results were compared to those obtained for samples taken from a low temperature oil field in Canada, which had been incubated with oil, either in the presence or in the absence of carbon steel. Again, methanogens present in these samples catalyzed methane production only when carbon steel was present. Moreover, acetate production was also found in these enrichments only in the presence of carbon steel. From these studies it appears that carbon steel, not oil organics, was the predominant electron donor for acetate production and methane formation in these low temperature oil fields, indicating that the methanogens and acetogens found may contribute significantly to MIC.

Highlights

Oil production is one of the most important factors contributing to the economic growth of Nigeria (Ogwumike and Ogunleye, 2008)
While we have previously shown in pure culture studies that the acetate requirement of corrosive sulfatereducing bacteria (SRB) may be fulfilled by corrosive acetogens (Mand et al, 2014), similar syntrophic roles may be played in methanogenic consortia
While many studies into biocorrosion continue to focus on microorganisms traditionally associated with microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) such as the SRB, we have shown here that oil field samples may contain an abundance of methanogenic archaea and hydrogenotrophic acetogens, which may be active in steel corrosion

Summary

Introduction

Oil production is one of the most important factors contributing to the economic growth of Nigeria (Ogwumike and Ogunleye, 2008). Corrosion linked to the activity of microorganisms is termed microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) and is often caused by hydrogenotrophic microorganisms These include the sulfatereducing bacteria (SRB), which are able to reduce sulfate to sulfide. Strains capable of using the steel directly as an electron donor have been isolated (Dinh et al, 2004; Uchiyama et al, 2010; Kato et al, 2014; Siegert et al, 2015) Consortia involving these microorganisms have been implicated in MIC in numerous environments (Zhang et al, 2003; Davidova et al, 2012; Usher et al, 2014, 2015)

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