Utilization of the Microflora Indigenous to and Present in Oil-Bearing Formations to Selectively Plug the More Porous Zones Thereby Increasing Oil Recovery During Waterflooding. Final Report

摘要

This is the final report on a Department of Energy Class I Oil Program, Mid-Term Activities project, entitled 'The Utilization of the Microflora Indigenous to and Present in Oil-Bearing Formations to Selectively Plug the More Porous Zones Thereby Increasing Oil Recovery During Waterflooding'. The 5.5 year project was divided into three phases. Those phases and their duration were: Phase I. Planning and Analysis (9 months), Phase II. Implementation (45 months), and Phase III. Technology Transfer (12 months). The laboratory portions of the project were carried out at Mississippi State University. The North Blowhorn Creek Oil Field situated in Lamar Co., AL, was the site of the field demonstration. Specifically, the objective of the project was to demonstrate the effectiveness of a microbial permeability profile modification technology (MPPM) to enhance oil recovery from a fluvial dominated deltaic reservoir and to document the scientific basis of the technology. Simply stated MPPM involves adding nitrogen-containing and phosphorous containing microbial nutrients to the injection water in a conventional waterflooding operation. The resulting microbial growth redirects water flow from the more porous zones to new unswept oil bearing channels, thereby increasing the efficiency of the waterflooding. Feed and feeding regimes employed in the field demonstration were formulated on the basis of core flood experiments conducted using live cores from a newly drilled well in an area of the field not influenced by the waterflooding operation. The field demonstration design involved injecting nutrients into four injectors (test) and monitoring the surrounding production wells. For control, the producing wells surrounding four other injectors not receiving nutrients were monitored. Thus, the results from producing wells in the test patterns could be compared to results from similar wells in the same field as well as the historical data.