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J Ind Microbiol Biotechnol (2014) 41:665678 DOI 10.1007/s10295-014-1401-z
ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY
Comparison of microbial communities involved in souring and corrosion in offshore and onshore oil production facilities in Nigeria
Chuma Okoro Seun Smith Leo Chiejina
Rhea Lumactud Dongshan An Hyung Soo Park Johanna Voordouw Bart P. Lomans Gerrit Voordouw
Abstract Samples were obtained from the Obigbo eld, located onshore in the Niger delta, Nigeria, from which oil is produced by injection of low-sulfate groundwater, as well as from the offshore Bonga eld from which oil is produced by injection of high-sulfate (2,200 ppm) seawater, amended with 45 ppm of calcium nitrate to limit reservoir souring. Despite low concentrations of sulfate (07 ppm) and nitrate (0 ppm), sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) and heterotrophic nitrate-reducing bacteria (NRB) were present in samples from the Obigbo eld. Biologically active deposits (BADs),
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10295-014-1401-z
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C. Okoro
Department of Biological Sciences, Caleb University, Lagos, Nigeria
S. Smith
Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCO), Lagos, Nigeria
L. Chiejina
Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) of Nigeria, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
R. Lumactud
Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON M1C 1A4, Canada
R. Lumactud D. An H. S. Park J. Voordouw
G. Voordouw (*)
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada e-mail: [email protected]
B. P. Lomans
Shell Global Solutions International BV, 2280 AB Rijswijk, The Netherlands
Received: 7 August 2013 / Accepted: 4 January 2014 / Published online: 30 January 2014 Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology 2014
scraped from corrosion-failed sections of a water- and of an oil-transporting pipeline (both Obigbo), had high counts of SRB and high sulfate and ferrous iron concentrations. Analysis of microbial community composition by pyrosequencing indicated anaerobic, methanogenic hydrocarbon degradation to be a dominant process in all samples from the Obigbo eld, including the BADs. Samples from the Bonga eld also had signicant activity of SRB, as well as of heterotrophic and of sulde-oxidizing NRB. Microbial community analysis indicated high proportions of potentially thermophilic NRB and near-absence of microbes active in methanogenic hydrocarbon degradation. Anaerobic incubation of Bonga samples with steel coupons gave moderate...