Interactions Between Anaerobic Oil Bacteria – Monitoring by Classic and Molecular Microbiology

The biogenic production of sulphide is one of the main problems in oil and gas industry, causing corrosion in storage tanks and pipes. This is possible by the injection of seawater during the secondary oil recovery. In the present work high levels of sulphide and acid producers were detected in water/oil samples from several sites from the petroleum industry. In a further stage, a broader range of microbial cells were detected, and finally, metagenomic analysis confirmed the presence of a diversity of microbes, indicating the complexity of the consortium in the production of sulphide, and based on the activity of acid producing cells and associated species.