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Energy Sources Part A-recovery Utilization and Environmental Effects, Vol.38, No.23, 3423-3434, 2016
Degradation of hydrocarbons by indigenous microbial communities from two adjacent oil production wells in one block
Aerobic acclimatization cultures of oil production water from two adjacent oil production wells (Xi15-14 and Xi51-5) in one block of Dagang oilfield were generated depending on crude oil as the sole carbon source and energy. Both cultures revealed a high degrading efficiency for a wide range of hydrocarbons, but degradation trend were striking different, and surface tension of two phases of oil and water decreased from 60 to 30 mN/m approximately by virtue of indigenous microbial metabolic activities. Meanwhile, cultured indigenous bacteria of wellXi15-14 mainly included Hydrocarboniphaga, Pseudomonas, and Ectothiorhodospiraceae bacterium, while wellXi51-5 contained Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas. Furthermore, abundance of alkane hydroxylase genes alk B and alk M from the two samples also showed an apparent difference. These findings are important that microbial diversity tightly tallies with the fact of a highly compartmentalized stratigraphy of this oilfield, suggesting that it is better to recover oil from extreme reservoirs with the targeted stimulating indigenous microorganisms.