Instt identifies bacteria for oil extraction

In what could prove to be a path-breaking discovery for the oil exploration and production business, scientists at Agharkar Research Institute ARI, Pune have identified environment friendly bacteria that allows extraction of oil at temperatures more than 90 degrees Celsius. Even as microbial enhanced oil recovery MEOR methods are being used by oil companies at the commercial level, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation ONGC has decided to seize the initiative and go in for field trials by attempting to produce oil at temperature levels above 90 degrees C.

ONGC, having recovered 40,000 tonnes of oil from 100 defunct wells around Ahmedabad and Assam in the last two years, is now contemplating field trials with the new technology. Dr T R Mishra, General Manager, Institute of Reservoir Studies, ONGC, when contacted in Ahmedabad told The Indian Express that the technology devised by ARI scientists was showing success at the laboratory level and soon field trials will be taken up.

8220;The ONGC has earmarked a sum of Rs 50 lakh for each of the research projects to develop microbial techniques used for the extraction of oil,8221; he said.

P K Dhakephalkar, scientist at ARI, said the institute has developed several consortia that could be suitable for MEOR. These consortia work in a temperature range of 70 C to more than 96 C. Consortia developed for MEOR at more than 91C are jointly owned by ARI and IRS-ONGC.