Oil production facilty fluids Raw sequence reads. oil production facility metagenome

With limited oil reserves, aging infrastructure, and our increasing demand for energy, determining the role of microorganisms in reservoir souring and corrosion has become a priority for the petroleum industry. The microbiology of two Alaska North Slope oil production facilities, Kuparuk and Alpine, was investigated by characterizing the microbial communities, microbially derived metabolites indicative of hydrocarbon biodegradation, and metagenomes. Strictly anaerobic, thermophilic members of the Synergistes, and Firmicutes dominated at Kuparuk. Mesophilic, facultatively-anaerobic members of the Deltaproteobacteria or Gammaproteobacteria dominated at Alpine. Almost all samples contained metabolites indicative of hydrocarbon degradation. Temperature and differential facility management practices are a significant driver of microbial community composition and microbially-induced degradation of hydrocarbons. In this study, metagenomes representative of the two oil production facilities were used to identify genes involved in hydrocarbon degradation pathways and begin to link microbial community structure and detected putative metabolites of hydrocarbon degradation.