The in situ microbial enhanced oil recovery in fractured porous media

Abstract

These experiments aim to investigate the microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR) technique in fractured porous media using etched-glass micromodels. Three identically patterned micromodels with different fracture angle orientation of inclined, vertical and horizontal with respect to the flow direction were utilized. A non-fractured model was also used to compare the efficiency of MEOR in fractured and non-fractured porous media. Two types of bacteria were employed: Bacillus subtilis (a biosurfactant-producing bacterium) and Leuconostoc mesenteroides (an exopolymer-producing bacterium). The results show that higher oil recovery efficiency can be achieved by using biosurfactant-producing bacterium in fractured porous media. Further investigation on the effect of the mentioned bacteria on oil viscosity, porous media permeability and wettability suggests that the plugging of matrix-fracture interfaces by an exopolymer is the main reason for the low performance of the exopolymer-producing bacterium. Oil viscosity reduction as well as the reduction of IFT was also found to be the reason for better microbial recovery efficiencies of biosurfactant-producing bacterium in the fractured models. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.