Team:ITB INDONESIA/problem
RhamCOLIpid
Engineered E. coli producing rhamnolipid for green enhanced oil recovery
Problem
Indonesia's oil production has been decreasing from 315 million barrels in 2012 into 238 million barrels in 2014 (ESDM).
This affects oil price and thus goods price that has been increasing steadily. One contributing aspect is low recovery in conventional oil recovery method that can only recover 20-40% oil from reservoir. This production can be increased into 30-60% by Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). Until 2011, implementation of EOR by waterflooding and steamflooding has contributed a 40% increase in Indonesia’s oil production (source). In the future, chemical injection can become another EOR alternative.
One of EOR methods by chemical injection is surfactant injection. The need of biodegradable and environment-friendly surfactant is important. One of biosurfactant is rhamnolipid, but it’s naturally produced by opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Thus, ITB_Indonesia designs GRAS bacteria, E. coli, to be able to produce rhamnolipid in a controllable and observable manner.