Application potential analysis of enhanced oil recovery by biopolymer-producing bacteria and biosurfactant-producing bacteria compound flooding

Abstract

To study the feasibility of polymer-producing bacteria Enterobacter cloacae (E. cloacae) FY-07 and surfactant-producing bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa WJ-1 combined profile control and flooding, the compatibility of FY-07 and WJ-1 was evaluated using laboratory experiments. The results showed that the growth and metabolism of WJ-1 was not significantly affected by the FY-07 in the degradation medium, and the surface tension of fermentation broth was reduced from 70 mN/m to 30 mN/m. FY-07 enhanced the degradation of WJ-1, increasing the ratio of C14- to C15+ from 0.37 to 0.67. The core-flooding experiments indicated the oil recovery of 17.4% when both FY-07 and WJ-1 were injected into the system, as against to 10.4% and 7.9% for FY-07 and WJ-1, respectively, when injected alone. The results demonstrate a good compatibility between the FY-07 and WJ-1 strains and highlight the application potential of stain FY-07 and strain WJ-1 compound flooding for enhancing the oil recovery in heterogeneous reservoirs.