Synopsis:
Even after over 35 years of practical field experience and routine monitoring in the endeavour to effectively manage microbiological proliferation and control microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC), failures still lead to unplanned shutdowns, repair and replacement costs. Over the last decades, a suite of microbiological and molecular methods has become available to the oil and gas industry to gauge the adverse effect of microbes in oil and gas installations. Extensive effort has been made to understand and act accordingly on the output of these different techniques and interpret results gained from these analyses to best effect. For example, data from qPCR are used routinely alongside the traditional culture-based techniques, such as MPN (Most probable number) counts as a monitoring technique aiding in understanding the status of the offshore system and guiding the action required to be taken, whilst next generation sequencing (NGS) remains a method used for more in-depth testing, such as in failure investigations.

In this talk we will be reviewing the current status quo of monitoring techniques, looking at the different information supplied by a range of methods available – what can we conclude from MPN data versus qPCR data, what different outputs can we expect when using different sequencing platforms (Illumina MiSeq versus Nanopore MinION). We will also be looking at what are the most common monitoring practices on hand in some case studies.

ICorr Technical Event
(Evening Event)

Company: Intertek

Speaker: Dr. Heike Hoffmann