MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF THE SOAKING

PERIOD IN MICROBIAL ENHANCED OIL RECOCEVERY

(MEOR) APPLICATION.
Nmegbu, G.J. and Eshiet, E.A.
Abstract
MEOR is a technology that involves the use of microorganisms to extract the
remaining oil from the reservoir with an exceptionally low operating cost. In
this study, mathematical models for describing microbial transport, nutrients
propagation and microbial growth in the porous media are presented. The
reservoir was assumed to be a perfect rectangular shape and was sub-divided
into five grid blocks. The bacteria and nutrients were injected into the first
grid block for the period of 10 days before the well was shut-in. after the
shut-in, the concentration of bacteria and nutrient consumption rate were
calculated in the other grid blocks with time. The results showed that bacteria
concentration increased as the nutrients were consumed with time. However,
in the latter period of the soaking process, severe bacteria decay occurred
due to the lack of sufficient nutrients. Graphical plots of the results are also
presented.

Keywords: Microbe soaking period, MEOR, MEOR modeling

INTRODUCTION
EOR methods are used in the oil industry to increase the ultimate recovery of
crude oil. This normally involves the application of an EOR method (sometimes
called tertiary recovery method) to a specific underground oil bearing reservoir.
Examples

of

well-known

tertiary

recovery

methods

are

chemical

flooding,

miscibleCO2 injection and thermally enhanced oil recovery that uses heat as main
source of additional recovery (Lake, 1989). Significant volumes of residual oil in the
depleted oil reservoirs could be produced by these EOR methods as current
technology leaves about two third of the original oil in place in the reservoir. One of
such method is microbial enhanced oil recovery (MEOR).
MEOR represents the use of microorganisms to extract the remaining oil from
the

reservoirs.

This

technology

can

be

potentially

implemented

with

an

exceptionally low operating cost and also said to be capable of producing up to 50%

of the residual oil (Lazar et al. 2007; Sen, 2008). The field trials have shown that
normal projected oil production decline curve can be reversed or level off by MEOR
and the reason is because microbial growth and metabolites produced can have
effects on the chemical and physical properties of reservoir rocks and crude oil
(Hitzman, 1991). This work is focused on the modeling of the soaking period in a
MEOR application.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODEL EQUATIONS

The modeling of the behavior of bacteria used in MEOR and its activities in
the reservoir has attracted interest from the beginning of MEOR research. Modeling
of MEOR includes several approaches. Both one-dimensional models (Zhang et al.,
1992; Saker et al., 1994) and models extending to two and three dimensions (Chang
et al., 1991; Behesht et al.s, 2008)
Islam and Gianetto ( Islam 1990; Islam and Gianetto, 1993) derived a
mathematical model for describing bacterial transport, nutrient propagation and
microbial growth in porous media. They used a successive over relaxation technique
to solve the governing partial differential equations. Of these they could not solve
microbial transport and nutrient propagation directly because of the absence of
numerical value of some constants. Therefore, they assigned values to them in
order to obtain real reservoir data. All model are based on the mass balance which
will later be presented as a combination of equations.This work focuses on the
mathematical modeling of equations of bacterial transport, bacterial growth and
nutrient propagation in the porous media
In 1991, Chang (Chang et al; 1991) proposed a model for bacterial and
nutrient transport in porous media as:

QC (

D
( SC )
(
U C ) K m
( C C f ) +S ( b K d ) C +
=
SC )+ S K c CK y ( irr )
V
t

()

(3.1)

Where:

D=Bacterial DiffusionConstant

S= Aqueo us Phase Saturation .

C=Microbial Cell Concentration .

C f =Substrate Concentration .

=Porosity

U=Darcy velocity .

Q=Well Flow rate

t=time .

V =Bulk volume of cell block .

=Microbial density .

=Volume of deposited bacteria per pore volume .

b=Bacterial growt h rate .
irr =Volume of irreversibility deposited bacteria per pore volume
K m=Chemotaxis coefficient .
K d =decay rate of bacteria .
K c =C logging rate of bacteria .
K y =declogging rate of bacteria .
h=declogging parameter .

Assuming that flow and diffusion are one-dimensional, equation (3.1) becomes.

( C f )
C

QC

+S ( b K d ) C +
= ( SC )+ S K c CK y ( irr )
x
V
t

( SC )

D
(U
C )K m

x
x
x
x

()

(3.2)

If chemotaxis is negligible (
affect the porosity (

K m=0 ), and that bacteria activity does not

=constant ; K c K y =0 ). Eqn 3.2 becomes,

(SC )

QC
D
(
U C )+ S ( b K d ) C+
= ( SC )
x
x
x
V
t
(3.3)

Assuming

to be constant and that oil and water saturation are constant, eqn

3.3 yields
2

D S

C ( )
QC
C

U C + S ( bK d ) C+
=S
2
V
t
x x
(3.4)

Assuming

to be constant.

2 C C
QC
C
D S 2 U
+S ( bK d ) C+
=S
x
V
t
x
(3.5)

Substituting

D S

k P

U=
x

2 C k P C
QC
C
+
.
+S ( bK d ) C+
=S
2

x
V
t
x
(3.6)

Assuming the term

p c
x x

to be small and neglible

D S

2 C
QC
C
+ S ( bK d ) C+
=S
2
V
t
x
(3.7)

Eqn 3.7 is the final equation for bacteria transport in porous media.
For nutrients transport in porous media, bacteria decay rate

Kd

= 0. The

equation becomes.

QC f
C f
2 C
D f S
+S

C
+
=S
b
f
V
t
x2
(3.8)

The growth of bacteria was assumed to follow the monod approach

b=

max C f
k s+C f
(3.9)

Where

max =maximum growthrate achieveabl e

kS = Substrate concentration that corresponds to the growth rate, which is half of
the maximum

For bacteria transport in porous media, equation is;

D S

2 C
QC
C
+ S ( bK d ) C+
=S
2
V
t
x
(4.0)

For nutrients transport in porous media, the equation is;

D f S

QC f
C f
2 C
+S b C f +
=S
2
V
t
x
(4.1)

The models set up in this work describe the bacteria propagation, nutrient
propagation and bacteria growth. The water phase consists of water, bacteria and
nutrients. The reactions are nutrients consumption and bacteria multiplication. The
bacteria growth rate is the Monod expression. So the reaction rate depends on the
bacteria and nutrient.
The model equations obtained in this work were solved using central difference
approximation in space and backward difference approximation in time at a time
step (n+1) using implicit formulation.

For bacteria transport;

n +1
i1

) ( )]

2
( x )2
( x )2
Q ( x )
+ 2+

( bK d ) +
D
DVS i D t
i

n +1
i

+C

n +1
i+1

( x )2 n
=
C
Dt i i

( )

(4.2)

For nutrients transport

n+1
f i1

[ (

)(

) ( )]

( x ) b
Q ( x )2
( x )2
+ 2
+

Df
D f VS i Df t
i

( x )2
C n
Dt i fi

( )

1
C f n+
+C f in+1
i
+1 =

(4.3)

The mathematical model equations were solved numerically using implicit finite
difference technique where the component mass balances and the total volume
balance are satisfied. The reservoir volume was subdivided into volume blocks for
easier testing of the effects of bacteria activity in each grid block. Each
discretization point corresponds to a volume block at a specific time. It is assumed
that each block is well mixed with the same composition in the entire block. The

soaking period is the time it takes the bacteria, from the point of injection, to
distribute and soak the entire reservoir.
In order to solve the systems of equations, experimental conditions and
parameters from Garzon crude oil were used. A MATLAB programme was run for
the soaking period of Microbial waterflooding experiment. For this system, the
diffusion of bacteria and nutrient solutions and also the consumption of nutrients
and the multiplication of bacteria throughout the shut-in time were solved implicitly
in every time step
During the injection period, the concentrations at the inlet were set to the
injection values. After the determination of the injection, the injection value
becomes zero. No flow boundary conditions were applied during the soaking period.

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE RESULTS

The figure below shows that the nutrient concentration and diffusion, with the
combined effects of microbial consumption and diffusion, changed considerably
within the reservoir. The nutrients diffused deep into the system with each time step
(10 days) and came close to the other end after time step four (40 days). The
Microbial consumption was so severe that after 40 days, the available nutrients
diminished.

40
35
30
25
CONCENTRATION (lb/cu. ft)

T1

20

T2
T3

15

T4

10
5
0
1

GRID BLOCK

Figure 1. Nutrient concentration distribution in the experimental model at different

times.

It can be observed from figure (2) that the bacterial concentration in the system
increased as the nutrients were consumed with time. Although some of the bacteria
died with time, this bacterial decay could not slow down the overall increase in the
bacterial population significantly at earlier times. However, after about 20days of
the shut-in time, lack of available nutrients reversed the conditions so that the
decaying of micro-organisms became more effective than their production.
Therefore, the microbial population at the inlet became smaller after 40days than
that for 10 days

45
40
35
30
CONCENTRATION (lb/cu. ft)

25

T1

20

T2

15

T3
T4

10
5
0
1

GRID BLOCK

Figure 2 Concentration of Bacteria in Each Gridblock at different timesteps

40
35
30
25
CONCENTRATION (LB/CU. FT)

20

BACTERIA CONC

15

NUTRIENT CONC

10
5
0
1

TIMESTEP

Figure 3 Nutrient and Bacteria Concentrations in Gridblock 1

Figure 3 shows how nutrients and bacteria concentrations changed in gridblock 1 at

different time steps. At the first time step (10 days), when there was injection of

bacteria and nutrient into the reservoir, the concentration of nutrients was large
while the concentration of bacteria was low. As time passes, bacteria fed on the
nutrients and multiplied while the nutrient concentration reduced. As more time
passes, the concentration of underfed and the decay of bacteria became
pronounced, therefore, the bacteria concentration reduced as a result.

CONCENTRATION (LB/CU. FT)

45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

BACTERIA CONC
NUTRIENT CONC

TIMESTEP

Figure 4: Nutrients and Bacteria concentration in gridblock 2 with time

Figure 4 shows that the concentration of nutrients increased slightly as time passes,
but the concentration of bacteria increased significantly as time elapsed indicating
good nourishment and rapid growth. As nutrients diminished, bacteria concentration
started to drop.

NUTRIENT AND BACTERIA CONCENTRATIONS IN GRIDBLOCK 3

CONCENTRATION (LB/CU. FT)

45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

BACTERIA CONC
NUTRIENT CONC

Axis Title

Figure 5: Nutrient and Bacteria Concentration in Gridblock 3 with time.

Figure5 shows how bacteria concentration increased exponentially and after some
time began to diminish when nutrients concentration reduced beyond a certain
level.

NUTRIENT AND BACTERIA CONCENTRATIONS IN GRIDBLOCK 4

8
7
6
5
CONCENTRATION (LB/CU. FT)

BACTERIA CONC

NUTRIENT CONC

3
2
1
0
1

TIMESTEP

Figure 6: Nutrient and Bacteria in Grid Block 4 with time

Figure 6 shows how the bacteria concentration increased exponentially and dropped
sharply as the nutrients diminished.

NUTRIENT AND BACTERIA CONCENTRATIONS IN GRIDBLOCK 5

0.25
0.2
0.15
CONCENTRATION (LB/CU. FT)

BACTERIA CONC
NUTRIENT CONC

0.1
0.05
0
1

TIMESTEP

Figure 7: Nutrients and Bacteria Concentration in Grid block 5 with time.

Figure 7 shows how the bacteria concentration increased exp0nentially and dropped
sharply as nutrients diminished.

The total period it took the bacteria from the point of injection into the reservoir, to
distribute and cover the whole reservoir, is called the soaking in MEOR application.
It is believed that at this point, the bacteria would have produced enough byproducts or metabolite that would not only reduce the viscosity of the oil, but also
increases its mobility in the reservoir.

CONCLUSION
In this research work, mathematical models that describe the transport of
bacteria and the nutrients in the reservoir during the shut-in period were developed.
The models were adapted to Garzan oil field depleted reservoir data and were also

improved with respect to the estimation of various parameters. The results showed
that the bacterial concentration increased as the nutrients were consumed with
time. After a certain period, due to the shortage of nutrients, the bacteria start to
decay. The results were also presented graphically and compared with the graphs
obtained from Garzan oil field data. The period the bacteria starts to decay can be
taken as the period to either replenish the nutrients in a multi-step nutrient slug
injection, if the bacterial concentration has not reached a certain range or it can be
interpreted that the bacteria has completely soaked the reservoir and it should be
opened for improved oil recovery.

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