Taxon has developed the first application of its technology for Oil and Gas exploration.  Nevertheless, Taxon’s microbial diversity profiling technology has the potential to solve a number of diverse problems.
 

 Oil & Gas Exploration

Oil and gas reservoirs often leak low molecular weight components of the accumulated hydrocarbons including methane, ethane, propane and butane.  These gases migrate toward the surface through two distinct pathways that result in either prolific macroseeps or microseeps.  Macroseeps occur where gas and occasionally oil migrate through faults or fractures in the rock through a bulk flow model.  Given these pathways, the locations of these surface macroseeps may be laterally displaced over significant distances.

Microseeps are formed when smaller quantities of reservoir gases migrate vertically through a buoyancy driven process that results in a diffuse plume overlying the source.  In either case as the hydrocarbons approach the surface they encounter large numbers of microorganisms, some of which metabolize these hydrocarbons.  Given time, consortia of microbes that participate in the metabolism of certain hydrocarbons accumulate. 

The key players in these processes can be identified by conducting comprehensive surveys of these microbial communities.  Currently, over 2 million bacterial and archaeal DNA sequences have been identified by Taxon scientists from near-surface microbial communities overlying thermogenic hydrocarbon accumulations. 

A small subset of these sequences correlated with the presence of thermogenic hydrocarbons in oilfield seep samples.  The microbes that possess these DNA sequences likely are involved, directly or indirectly, in the metabolism of these seep hydrocarbons.  The DNA for these organisms can thus be used as bioindicators for the presence of hydrocarbon plumes.  Taxon has developed sensitive and specific assays (based on quantitative PCR) to detect each of these DNA sequences in environmental samples.

For oil and gas exploration projects, soil samples are collected from a grid array in the prospective oilfield.  The abundance of each hydrocarbon bioindicator DNA sequence is determined from genomic DNA extracted from the soil samples.  These values are then used to construct contoured surface maps delineating the locations of hydrocarbon plumes.

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