Bacterial Growth in Oilfield Reservoirs: Souring and Biofouling Related to Reservoir Treatments and Characteristics

Abstract

Bacterial Growth in Oilfield Reservoirs: Souring and Biofouling Related to Reservoir Treatments and Characteristics

The University of Exeter and Oil Plus Ltd., have collaborated for four years on industry sponsored research programmes to study bacterially mediated reservoir souring. The current two year DTI and industry funded research programme commenced January 1995 and encompasses some wider aspects of bacterial growth in oil reservoirs which have hitherto received little attention, but will provide further valuable insights into our understanding of bacterial interactions in the reservoir situation.

Although this project commenced only relatively recently, it is important to be familiar with the key results of earlier work to understand the relevance of the scope of the new project. This paper will therefore take the form of a review of the work accomplished to date with industry sponsorship, leading to a description of the workscope and results so far in this project.