Brimstone and Treacle: Understanding Oil-Driven Microbial Souring In Petroleum Reservoirs

硫磺和糖浆：了解石油储层中石油驱动的微生物酸化

• 批准号: 2127659
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Newcastle University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2127659
• 关键词: Brimstone; Treacle; Understanding; Oil; Driven

Reservoir souring is a widespread problem within the petroleum industry. It is characterised by an increase in sulfide concentrations within a reservoir, and it's produced fluids, over time. This reduces crude oil quality and consequently its market value, drives corrosion of infrastructure, and presents safety concerns for workers. Accommodating for these issues significantly inflates the cost of drilling and refining operations. Sulfate reducing microorganisms (SRM) are thought to be responsible for the majority of souring. SRM "breathe" sulfate, using it during respiration as an acceptor of electrons obtained from food (electron donors) and reducing it to sulfide. As souring is intrinsically linked to the activity of SRM, it is heavily influenced by conditions within an oil reservoir, such as temperature, salinity, pH, availability of nutrients and electron donors/acceptors. Due to the myriad of problems souring poses to the petroleum industry, there has been a concerted effort to understand its underlying mechanisms and produce accurate predictive models. This project will focus on the role of crude oil composition in determining the likelihood/extent of souring observed within a petroleum reservoir. Crude oil is the main provider of electron donors for SRM, and some oils contain hydrocarbon fractions that have displayed toxicity to microbes. As crude oils show massive variations in their composition, they may also display significant variation in their propensity to support souring. The key aim of this project is to describe the relationship between oil composition and souring, in the hopes of improving the ability to predict how souring may develop within an oil reservoir. This will be done by sourcing a wide array of crude oil samples, and analysing them using cutting edge chromatography techniques to gain a detailed picture of their composition. Using laboratory microcosms as analogues to oil reservoirs, the souring potentials of these oils will be assessed. Using these highly controlled laboratory systems will allow for a definitive assessment of composition/souring relationships, unachievable simply by in situ observations of oil reservoirs. In addition to testing the souring potential of each oil, detailed analysis of the microbial communities they support will be undertaken using metagenomics. This will hopefully allow for a deeper understanding of the interactions between oil composition and souring, as a detailed view of the microbial communities supported by an oil can be established. Initial areas of investigation will involve establishing general trends between the differences in souring potential of non-biodegraded (light) oils compared to more biodegraded (heavier) oils. Less biodegraded oils are more abundant in smaller hydrocarbon fractions that are more easily used as a source of electron donors by reservoir microbes, however they also contain the higher concentrations of toxic hydrocarbon fractions. Once a general trend is established there will be further probing into the nuances of this relationship, as in the real world two oil reservoirs containing oils with similar levels of bio-degradation can display vastly different levels of souring. Subject to this research, further study into individual oil components, or groups of oils components and their culpability in supporting/inhibiting souring may be undertaken. Microcosms present a useful tool to investigate souring under highly controlled conditions and will be used extensively during this project, however there are certainly criticisms as to how well they truly represent a complex reservoir environment. Later stages of the project will therefore involve the use of advection based systems to study souring, in the form of packed bioreactors which are more representative of the turbulent conditions within an oil reservoir during drilling activities.

储层酸是石油行业中普遍存在的问题。它的特征是储层内硫化物浓度的升高，并且随着时间的流逝而产生的流体。这样可以降低原油质量，从而降低其市场价值，促进基础设施的腐蚀，并对工人提出安全问题。解决这些问题会大大膨胀钻井和炼油操作的成本。硫酸盐还原微生物（SRM）被认为是大多数酸的原因。 SRM“呼吸”硫酸盐，在呼吸过程中使用它作为从食物（电子供体）获得的电子的受体，并将其还原为硫化物。由于酸味与SRM的活性本质上有关，因此它受到油储层中的条件的很大影响，例如温度，盐度，pH，养分和电子供体/受体的可用性。由于为石油行业造成了无数的疾病姿势，因此已经齐心协力了解其基本机制并产生准确的预测模型。该项目将重点介绍原油成分在确定石油储层中观察到的酸度的可能性/程度上的作用。原油是SRM的电子供体的主要提供商，有些油中含有对微生物毒性的碳氢化合物分数。由于原油在其组成方面表现出巨大的变化，因此它们的倾向倾向也可能显示出显着的差异。该项目的主要目的是描述石油成分与酸性之间的关系，以期提高预测油储油机内酸性发展的能力。这将通过采购各种原油样品来完成，并使用尖端色谱技术对其进行分析，以获取其组成的详细图片。将使用实验室缩影作为对油储层的类似物，将评估这些油的酸味。使用这些高度受控的实验室系统将可以通过原位观察到石油储层来确切地评估组成/酸关系，这是无法实现的。除了测试每种石油的酸性潜力外，还将使用元基因组学对其支持的微生物群落进行详细分析。有望可以更深入地了解石油成分与酸味之间的相互作用，因为可以建立对石油支持的微生物群落的详细观点。初始调查领域将涉及与更生物降解（更重）油相比，非降解（轻度）油的酸味（轻度）油的差异之间的一般趋势。在较小的碳氢化合物中，较小的生物降解油更为丰富，这些碳酸碳酸含量更容易用作电子供体的来源，但是它们还包含较高浓度的有毒碳氢化合物馏分。一旦建立了总体趋势，就会进一步探讨这种关系的细微差别，就像在现实世界中，两个含有相似生物降解水平的油的油储层可以表现出巨大的酸化水平。在这项研究的前提下，可以进一步研究单个石油成分或一组石油组件及其在支持/抑制酸化方面的屈服。缩影提出了一种有用的工具，可以在高度控制的条件下调查酸性，并将在该项目期间广泛使用，但是肯定会批评它们真正代表一个复杂的储层环境。因此，该项目的后期阶段将涉及使用基于对流的系统来研究酸化的形式，以填充的生物反应器的形式，这些形式更能代表钻探活动期间油库内的湍流条件。