Unravelling the Oil and Gas Microbiome Using Metagenomics

Recent microbiological studies have revealed that microbial activity in hydrocarbon reservoirs and associated oil and gas infrastructure is much more prominent than originally thought. More importantly, it is now widely accepted that detrimental microbial processes like reservoir souring, biofouling and microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) pose significant financial and environmental threats. Lower DNA sequencing cost opened new opportunities in the field of metagenomics which is aiming at characterizing the microbial community members found in a sample without the need for lab culturing. This chapter provides a series of recommendations for an effective and reliable analysis of samples derived from oil and gas environments using publicly available bioinformatics tools and resources. Collectively, they form the basis for best practices for single marker gene like the 16S rRNA and metagenome data analysis enabling more reliable comparison across different studies and research groups. Despite the initial slow adoption of metagenomics, the oil and gas industry has finally begun to realize the benefits from these new developments. More specifically, novel applications of metagenomics have started to emerge in various oil and gas operations including hydrocarbon exploration, production allocation in the unconventional fields, monitoring for MIC and souring, environmental assessment and biofuel development among others.