Description
Abstract: Microbiological growth in seawater injection systems can have significant impact on the safe operation and integrity of such plants. Such growth causes oil production problems as well as Microbiologically Induced Corrosion (MIC) in oil and water injection facilities. Therefore, an Investigation was carried out to demonstrate the application of quantitative and qualitative molecular methods to monitor and control microbiologically induced corrosion (MIC) in a seawater injection system in north Kuwait oilfields. A quantitative PCR (qPCR) to identify sites with large number of sulphate reducing bacteria in the seawater injection system was applied. In addition to this, next-generation amplicon sequencing (NGS) was used to gain information about the microorganisms present in the evaluated systems. Results and data obtained from such techniques revealed that a deaerator tower in one of the systems was a potential source of MIC culprit organisms to the downstream part of the system. Based on the acquired information, optimization of chemical mitigation strategies was made targeting the specific organisms present in each system. These data were also compared with the current method of bacteria counts and the chemical treatments currently applied in the seawater injection system. It is expected that this thorough approach with time will lead to reduction of operating (OPEX) and capital (CAPEX) expenditures for the seawater injection system.
Authors: S. Mukadam, M. Dabir, A.Al-Hashem, M. Poulsen, T. Roesen, and T. Lundgaard
Keywords: Oilfields, Sulphate reducing bacteria, microorganisms, molecular methods