Patent ID: 8528634

Claim:
A method for enhancing oil recovery from a target oil reservoir using an enriched steady state microbial consortium comprising: (a) providing environmental samples comprising indigenous microbial populations of said target oil reservoir; (b) enriching for one or more steady state microbial consortium present in said samples wherein said enriching results in a consortium that utilizes crude oil as a carbon source under anaerobic, denitrifying conditions; (c) characterizing the enriched steady state consortium of (b) using 16S rDNA profiling; (d) assembling a consortium using the characterization of (c) comprising microbial genera comprising one or more Thauera species and any two additional species that are members of genera selected from the group consisting of Rhodocyclaceae, Pseudomonadales, Bacteroidaceae, Clostridiaceae, Incertae Sedis, Spirochaetaceaes, Deferribacterales, Brucellaceae and Chloroflexaceae; (e) identifying at least one relevant functionality of the consortium of (d); (f) storing said consortium at −70° C. without loss of said relevant functionality for oil recovery; (g) growing the enriched steady state consortium of (e) having at least one relevant functionality to a concentration sufficient for reservoir inoculation; and (h) inoculating the target reservoir with said sufficient concentration of the consortium of (f) and injection water comprising one or more electron acceptors wherein the consortium grows in the reservoir and wherein said growth promotes increased oil recovery.