Review on microbial enhanced oil recovery in China: mechanisms, potential disadvantages, and application of genetic engineering

Abstract

ABSTRACT Petroleum is becoming a limited commodity due to increasing global demands attributed to industrialization and the population boom. Because the conventional methods of oil recovery have exhaustively reached an economic limit, developing novel technological approaches in oil extraction is therefore a priority concern. One proposed strategy is the microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR), which is purported as an effective method to improve oil recovery from low-permeability reservoirs in China. Although this method is considered minimally invasive, low-cost, and operationally simple, it has not been widely applied in the oil industry. Here, we discuss the technical details of MEOR in laboratory settings and field tests. The current challenges in employing MEOR from lab settings to industrial pilot scale-ups are systematically presented, here, including its economic implications. Central to this review is the synopsis of our findings on the applicability of MEOR and micro-foam method in the northwest district of China (Shaanxi province), along with the successful cases of these applications in other countries. This article also focused on a newly developed flooding technology, the so-called genetically engineered microbial enhanced oil recovery (GEMEOR). In addition, we included our proposed operational designs on GEMEOR and its technological potentials on an industrial scale. This review therefore demonstrates the creditability of MEOR, and may provide more guidance for the application of GEMEOR in Chinese oilfields.