Microbial Bioinformatics In The Oil And Gas Industry

This book brings together contributions from leading scientists, academics, and experts from the oil and gas industry to discuss microbial-related problems faced by the industry and how bioinformatics and an interdisciplinary scientific approach can address these challenges. Microbial Bioinformatics in the Oil and Gas Industry: Applications to Reservoirs and Processes presents the major industrial problems caused by microbes (e.g., souring, biocorrosion) as well as the beneficial activities (e.g., biofuels, bioremediation). FEATURES Offers a detailed description of how bioinformatics has advanced our understanding of numerous issues in the oil and gas industry Covers cases from geographically diverse oil fields, laboratories, and research groups Contains fundamentals and applied information of relevance to the oil and gas sector Presents contributions from a team of international experts across industry and academia With its cross-disciplinary approach, this comprehensive book provides microbial ecologists, molecular biologists, operators, engineers, chemists, and academics involved in the sector with an improved understanding of the significance of microbial bioinformatics applications in the oil and gas industry.

Petroleum hydrocarbons are both a product of, and rich substrate for, microorganisms from across all Domains of life. Rooted deeply in the history of microbiology, hydrocarbons have been studied as sources of carbon and energy for microorganisms for over a century. As global demand for petroleum and its refined products continues to rise, so do challenges associated with environmental pollution, oil well souring, infrastructure corrosion, oil recovery, transport, refining, and upgrading of heavy crude oils and bitumens. Advances in genomics, synthetic biology and metabolic engineering has invigorated interest in petroleum microbial biotechnology as interest grows in technologies for in situ methane production, biodesulfurization and biodenitrogenation, bio-upgrading of heavy crudes, microbial enhanced oil recovery, corrosion control, and biocatalysts for generating value-added products. Given the complexity of the global petroleum industry and the harsh conditions in which it operates, a deeper understanding of the ecophysiology of aerobic and anaerobic microbial communities that have associations with petroleum hydrocarbons is needed if robust technologies are to be deployed successfully. This research topic highlights recent advances in microbial enhanced oil recovery, methanogenic hydrocarbon metabolism and carbon dioxide sequestration, bioremediation, microbiologically influenced corrosion, biodesulfurization, and the application of metagenomics to better understand microbial communities associated with petroleum hydrocarbons.

Introduction to Petroleum Biotechnology introduces the petroleum engineer to biotechnology, bringing together the various biotechnology methods that are applied to recovery, refining and remediation in the uses of petroleum and petroleum products. A significant amount of petroleum is undiscoverable in reservoirs today using conventional and secondary methods. This reference explains how microbial enhanced oil recovery is aiding to produce more economical and environmentally-friendly metabolic events that lead to improved oil recovery. Meanwhile, in the downstream side of the industry, petroleum refining operators are facing the highest levels of environmental regulations while struggling to process more of the heavier crude oils since conventional physical and chemical refining techniques may not be applicable to heavier crudes. This reference proposes to the engineer and refining manager the concepts of bio-refining applications to not only render heavier crudes as lighter crudes through microbial degradation, but also through biodenitrogenation, biodemetallization and biodesulfurization, making more petroleum derivatives purified and upgraded without the release of more pollutants. Equipped for both upstream and downstream to learn the basics, this book is a necessary primer for today’s petroleum engineer. Presents the fundamentals behind petroleum biotechnology for both upstream and downstream oil and gas operations Provides the latest technology in reservoir recovery using microbial enhanced oil recovery methods Helps readers gain insight into the current and future application of using biotechnology as a refining and fuel blending method for heavy oil and tar sands

Applied Microbiology and Molecular Biology in Oil Field Systems addresses the major problems microbes cause in oil fields, (e.g. biocorrosion and souring) and how beneficial microbial activities may be exploited (e.g. MEOR and biofuels). The book describes theoretical and practical approaches to specific Molecular Microbiological Methods (MMM), and is written by leading authorities in the field from both academia and industry. The book describes how MMM can be applied to faciliate better management of oil reservoirs and downstream processes. The book is innovative in that it utilises real industrial case studies which gives useful technical and scientific information to researchers, engineers and microbiologists working with oil, gas and petroleum systems.

Microorganisms can be both beneficial and harmful to the oil and gas industry and therefore there is an increasing need for the oil industry to characterize, quantify and monitor microbial communities in real time. Oilfield Microbiology offers a fundamental insight into how molecular microbiological methods have enabled researchers in the field to analyze and quantify in situ microbial communities and their activities in response to changing environmental conditions. Such information is fundamental to the oil industry to employ more directed, cost-effective strategies to prevent the major problems associated with deleterious microbial activities (e.g., souring and biocorrosion), as well as to encourage beneficial microbe activity (e.g. oil bioremediation). The aim of the book is to understand how the technological advances in molecular microbiological methods over the last two decades are now being utilized by the oil industry to address the key issues faced by the sector. This book contains a comprehensive collection of chapters written by invited experts in the field from academia and industry and provides a solid foundation of the importance of microbes to the oil and gas industry. It is aimed at microbial ecologists, molecular biologists, operators, engineers, chemists, and academics involved in the sector.

Microorganisms are ubiquitously present in petroleum reservoirs and the facilities that produce them. Pipelines, vessels, and other equipment used in upstream oil and gas operations provide a vast and predominantly anoxic environment for microorganisms to thrive. The biggest technical challenge resulting from microbial activity in these engineered environments is the impact on materials integrity. Oilfield microorganisms can affect materials integrity profoundly through a multitude of elusive (bio)chemical mechanisms, collectively referred to as microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC). MIC is estimated to account for 20 to 30% of all corrosion-related costs in the oil and gas industry. This book is intended as a comprehensive reference for integrity engineers, production chemists, oilfield microbiologists, and scientists working in the field of petroleum microbiology or corrosion. Exhaustively researched by leaders from both industry and academia, this book discusses the latest technological and scientific advances as well as relevant case studies to convey to readers an understanding of MIC and its effective management.

Selection of the optimal recovery method is significantly influenced by economic issues in today’s oil and gas markets. Consequently, the development of cost-effective technologies, which bring maximum oil recovery, is the main interest in today’s petroleum research communities. Theory and Practice in Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery provides the fundamentals, latest research and creditable field applications. Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery (MEOR) is potentially a low-priced and eco-friendly technique in which different microorganisms and their metabolic products are implemented to recover the remaining oil in the reservoir. Despite drastic advantages of MEOR technology, it is still not fully supported in the industry due to lack of knowledge on microbial activities and their complexity of the process. While some selected strategies have demonstrated the feasibility to be used on a mass scale through both lab and field trials, more research remains to implement MEOR into more oil industry practices. This reference delivers comprehensive descriptions on the fundamentals including basic theories on geomicrobiology, experiments and modeling, as well as current tested field applications. Theory and Practice in Microbial Enhanced Oil Recovery gives engineers and researchers the tool needed to stay up to date on this evolving and more sustainable technology. Covers fundamental screening criteria and theories selective plugging and mobility control mechanisms Describes the basic effects on environmental parameters and the mechanics of simulation, including microbial growth kinetics Applies up to date practical applications proven in both the lab and the field

Overview and Goals This book describes how to visualize and compare bacterial genomes. Sequencing technologies are becoming so inexpensive that soon going for a cup of coffee will be more expensive than sequencing a bacterial genome. Thus, there is a very real and pressing need for high-throughput computational methods to compare hundreds and thousands of bacterial genomes. It is a long road from molecular biology to systems biology, and in a sense this text can be thought of as a path bridging these ? elds. The goal of this book is to p- vide a coherent set of tools and a methodological framework for starting with raw DNA sequences and producing fully annotated genome sequences, and then using these to build up and test models about groups of interacting organisms within an environment or ecological niche. Organization and Features The text is divided into four main parts: Introduction, Comparative Genomics, Transcriptomics and Proteomics, and ? nally Microbial Communities. The ? rst ? ve chapters are introductions of various sorts. Each of these chapters represents an introduction to a speci? c scienti? c ? eld, to bring all readers up to the same basic level before proceeding on to the methods of comparing genomes. First, a brief overview of molecular biology and of the concept of sequences as biological inf- mation are given.