Microbial EOR research advances

摘要

Microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) technology shows the most promise of alternative technologies as extensive research drives its advance toward mainstream use. The long-term economic potential for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is large, with more than 300 billion bbl of oil remaining in domestic reservoirs after conventional technologies reach their economic limit. The US Department of Energy (DOE) Reservoir Data Base contains listings for more than 600 reservoirs with over 12 billion bbl of currently unrecoverable oil that are potential targets for MEOR. If MEOR could be successfully applied to reduce residual oil saturation by 10% in a fourth of these reservoirs, more than 300 million bbl of oil could be added to US oil reserves, according to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).