offshore oil production facility Raw sequence reads. biofilm metagenome

Offshore oil production facilities are frequently victims of internal piping corrosion, potentially leading to human and environmental risks and significant economic losses. Microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) is believed to be an important factor in this major problem for the petroleum industry. However, knowledge of the microbial communities and metabolic processes leading to corrosion is still limited. Therefore, the microbial communities from three anaerobic biofilms recovered from the inside of a steel pipe, exhibiting high corrosion rates, iron oxides deposits and substantial amounts of sulfur, which are characteristic of MIC, were analyzed in detail. Bacterial and archaeal community structures were investigated using high throughput Illumina Miseq sequencing and quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis.