National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA)

(Federal Ministry of Science and Technology)
16, Dunukofia Street (Old CAC Building), Area 11, Garki 
Abuja

State and Application of Bioremediation in

Nigeria’s Oil Fields

Presenter: PROF. B. O. SOLOMON
DIRECTOR-GENERAL (NABDA)
Venue : NICON LUXURY HOTEL ABUJA APRIL 1-3, 2009

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 Outline:

Introduction
Bioremediation
Efforts at Bioremediation Application
State of Bioremediation Technology
Lab-Scale Operations
Field-Scale Operations
Indigenous bioremediation products for:
– Drill Cuttings Management
– Produce Water Management
– Flare Pit Waste Mnagement
– Soil Hydrocarbon Pollution Management
– Way forward

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 Introduction

Human economic activities have always given rise to need

for further activities to ameliorate the resulting adverse
effects on the environment.

This dimension suggests that man has not completely been

unaware of environmental impacts of the quest for
human survival, which draws energy and nutrients from
the earth.

The angle that has remained unsatisfactorily addressed is

the choice of mitigation technology that can return
mother earth to status quo ante or guarantee continuous
availability of directly utilized resources or associated
support systems.
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 continuation...

Technology choice has particularly been

difficult for two recalcitrant and continuous
threats: municipal waste, nutrient and
hydrocarbon contamination.
Incidentally, the former is a huge raw material
for further economic growth while the later
has presented itself as a true threat to
human and environmental survival.
This leaves us with one true class of enemy:
nutrient and hydrocarbon contamination.

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 Nutrient and Hydrocarbon 
Contamination.

A number of approaches have

successfully been deployed at
industrial level with reckonable degree
of achievement in controlling nutrient
contamination and the most
remarkable of them have been
biological-technique enhanced
treatments.

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 continuation...
However, the same cannot be said of bioremediation,
especially in Nigeria.

Considering the magnitude of threat from

environmental degradation and the resultant socio-
economic dimension of hydrocarbon contamination
in the Niger Delta area, the present administration
has identified the security of the region as a
national priority.

This means all increased efforts at cleaning up the

spills using sustainable technologies of which
bioremediation is most suitable.

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 continuation...

Previous methods designed to deal with

waste by-products from oil fields include:
• storage
• landfill
• relocation
• incineration

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Typical flare pit in the Niger Delta

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Hydrocarbon polluted farmlands in Ogoniland

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 1

Flow station at Ogbogu contaminated with hydrocarbon

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 BIOREMDIATION: INTRO

• Decontamination of environmental media by

naturally occurring biological agents in the
environment is often slow. However, it goes
on.

• The implication is that at pollution levels

below the carrying capacity of the media
concerned, restoration to best known
conditions for life support is possible over
long time.

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 BIOREMDIATION

• It is the optimization of this natural

restoration power of biological agents that
bioremediation seeks to optimize in the
face of overwhelming contamination.

• The technology seeks to catalyze natural

decontamination process by stimulating
the remedial activity of these organisms.

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 BIOREMDIATION

Our responsibility is thus to contribute to the

success of stabilizing the Niger Delta
through restoration of the environmental
media to human usable forms.

To achieve this task, various technologies

must be identified and optimized for
efficiency. At the moment, the most
economic and sustainable technology is
bioremediation.
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 Bioremediation in Nigeria
Bioremediation is a multidisciplinary
technology that decomposes
contaminants transforming them into
harmless byproducts, i.e. water and
carbon dioxide, using the following
products:
• microbes
• surfactants
• micronutrients and
• bio-stimulants
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 Bioremediation in Nigeria
Bioremediation
• Economical
• Sustainable

Suitable for
• cleaning up oil spills after emergency
response
• soils contaminated with
petroleum/hydrocarbons derivatives
• dangerous organic compounds.

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 continuation...
Biostimulation involves
– aeration
– application of selected micronutrients and bio-
stimulants.
Bio-stimulation is only effective when
– indigenous microbial populations present in the
substrate are high enough to degrade the
contaminants
– when these microbes can readily adapt to
foreign contaminants.
Bioaugmentation involves
– application of beneficial microbes that have an
affinity towards a specific contaminant.

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Some contaminant suitable for bioremediation

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Environmental conditions affecting 
bioremediation

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 1

All bioremediation methods could be ex-situ (1) (outside

point of occurrence) or in-situ (2) (at the point of occurrence)

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 continuation...
Bioremediation Benefits

- Degradation in a relatively narrow time

- Simultaneous multiple activity
- Toxin resistant
- Reduced risk / higher degree of safety
- Reduced labor and equipment costs

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 continuation...
Engineering

Bioremediation
technology

Biology Chemistry

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 Bioremediation process optimization

– Without intervention, microbes degrade oil but at a

rather slow rate. Enhancing this process is the
essence of research in bioremediation.

– Some of the process optimization strategies in

bioremediation include the following:
• Control of physical and chemical parameter example
Temperature, pH, moisture and oxygen content.
• Control of microbial parameters

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 Bioremediation process optimization
parameters

Process 
optimization

Physico-chemical Factors
•Temperature Microbial Parameters
•Genetic characteristics
•pH
•Physiological properties
•Water
•Metabolic diversity
•O2 / Redox potential
•Enzymological capabilities
•Mass transfer
•Solubility
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 Review of bioremediation efforts in 
Nigeria

Unfortunately, very few successful efforts have

been documented for field-scale
bioremediation projects, but many lab-scale
research work have been carried out.
At lab-scale, the methods adopted include:
• Simulation of field contamination
• Bio-augmentation (indigenous and engineered
microbes)
• Bio-stimulation (agricultural fertiliser)
• Tilling
Some of the results obtained are presented
below:
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 Review of bioremediation efforts in 
Nigeria
S/N Physico-Chemical Parameters Range (%)

1. Moisture Drop 19-13

2. Organic Carbon 85-1.5

Drop

3. Ph Drop 6.34-4.5

4. Nitrogen Increase 0.021-0.081

5. Duration of bioremediation 8weeks

6. Total Hydrocarbon Reduction (THP) 73-88

Range of values for results obtained from lab-scale bioremediation research

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 Review of bioremediation efforts 
in Nigeria

S/N Method (%) THC

  Reduction

1. Biostimulation, Bioaugmentation with indigenous HUB Tilling 83

2. mixing uncontaminated soil with polluted soil, tilling and 73

Bioaugumentation with HUB

3. Biostimulation, Bioaugmentation with indigenous HUB 88

4. Biostimulation with tilling 86

5. No intervention (control) 2

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 Pilot –scale bioremediation projects

Some measure of success has been achieved in large

scale application of bioremediation. Very few
attempts have been made though but the results
have been particularly inspiring.

One of such attempts is the development and pilot

scale deployment of an indigenous bio-formulation
for the cleaning of the following forms of
hydrocarbon contamination:
 Drilling mud
 Produced water
 Hydrocarbon contaminated sediment and soil
 Hydrocarbon contaminated water
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 Current Practices of hydrocarbon
waste management

Drilling Mud and Produced Water

On-shore:
• dumped in temporary or permanent pits which
eventually overflows into adjoining land and
water.
Off-shore:
• deposited into the surrounding waters where it
also causes pollution.

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 Untreated Drill Mud on soil

Drill mud is acidic and is dangerous to the environment if dumped without 
treatment  NABDA (c)2009 ENC 29
 Untreated Produced water

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Scum and oil waste pollution on a flare pit in Niger Delta prior to treatment with an 
indigenous product
 Untreated Produced water

Produced water does not support life due to high COD and BOD values from 
contamination NABDA (c)2009 ENC 31
 Current situation....
There is hardly any further remediation of
sediments and water systems following
emergency response to a reported spill.

This situation results in:

• Exertion of undue pressure on the attenuation
potential of resident microbes
• Death of resident microbes, flora and fauna due to
acidity from contaminants
• Loss in water and soil quality
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 Indigenous products in
bioremediation
Research has been intense lately in Nigerian
universities and research centres for the development
of products capable of remedying hydrocarbon
contamination.

Some indigenous products have been able to handle

the following operations:
• Clean-up of oil polluted soil.
• Clean-up of oil on water.
• Conversion of oil sludge into organic fertilizer.
• Treatment of oil polluted soil samples from a flow station tank to a form that
supports healthy plant growth.
• Treatment of a produce wastewater pit Bio-treatment of samples of toxic
drilling mud to a non-toxic form that supported healthy plant growth.

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Indigenous bioremediation products
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 Bio-remediated Drill cuttings

•    Drill Mud Cutting from oil site treated with indigenous bioremediation   
product can support the growth of plants.
•    The mud can also be reused for construction and other purposes

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 Pilot Scale Treatment of a flare pit in Niger
 Delta Region of Nigeria Using a locally 
formulated product

•     Some of these products have undergone complete field trials under 
several standards including DPR, American, Canadian and Australian and 
have also been patented for full scale deployment.

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•   Distinct plant and animal growth in treated produced water in a waste pit in Niger Delta

   The results from treatment of  waste pits using indigenous products 
are quite encouraging.
   The implication is that the government will begin to enforce local 
content in personnel and product quota for the decontamination soil and 
water after emergency response.
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 Results
Drill cutting treatment with local product
           
Untreated
Parameters DPRa1 DPRa2
Drilling Mud Treated
mg/kg mg/kg mg/kg mg/kg

Duration (days) After 21 days

9.10 7.00 6.5-8.5 6.5 - 8.5
pH
1.37 0.26 0.8 12
Cadmium (Cd) mg/ kg
6.8 1.4 36 190
Cupper (Cu) mg/ kg
3.24 0.88 85 530
Lead (Pb) mg/ kg
Zinc (Zn) mg/ kg 78.22 39.96 140 720

Total TPH % 0.09

• DPRa1 mg/kg  - Target Value 51.76
Source: Otaiku, 2007
• DPRa2 mg/kg- Intervention Value

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Results for some Waste Pit (Surface water) treatment using 
indigenous products

           DPRa2 Australiab Canadac

DPRa1 mg/kg mg/kg µg/kg
Untreated
mg/kg
Waste Pit Treated
Parameters mg/kg mg/kg
pH 6.56 6.80
<0.01 29 55 20
Arsenic (As) mg/kg
<0.01
Barium (Ba) mg/ kg 410 300 200 625
Cadmium (Cd) mg/ kg <0.01 2.87 0.8 12 1.5
Chromium (Cr) mg/ kg 3.0 0.31 100 380 80
Cupper (Cu) mg/ kg 4.0 1.94 36 190 65
Lead (Pb) mg/ kg 41.0 <0.01 85 530 50
Calcium (Ca) mg/ kg 1316 612.2
11.17 140 720 200
Zinc (Zn) mg/ kg
52.0

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Total Iron(Fe) mg/ kg 14.0 604.7

Sulphate (SO4²)mg/ kg 100 1

<0.01
Nitrate N03- mg/ kg
<0.01
Ammonia (NH4) mg/ kg 8.0 26.0

18.7
2358
Phosphate (P2O5) mg/ kg
142
Salinity as Chloride (Cl) mg/ kg 80.0
17.65 50 5000
TPH mg/ kg 4,600
<0.01 1 40 4000µg/kg

PAH mg/ kg 0.311

21,000 19,500
Total Organic Carbon (TOC) mg/kg

Sulphide (S2-),mg/kg 3.12 <0.01

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Source: Otaiku, 2007
ENC 40
Waste Pit (soil/sediment) treatment: indigenous product
            DPRa2 Australiab Canadac
Untreated Treated waste DPRa1 mg/kg mg/kg µg/kg
Parameters Waste Pit pit
  mg/kg mg/kg mg/kg
6.56 6.80
pH
<0.01 29 55 20

Arsenic (As) mg/kg <0.01

410 300 200 625
Barium (Ba) mg/ kg
<0.01 2.87 0.8 12 1.5
Cadmium (Cd) mg/ kg
3.0 0.31 100 380 80
Chromium (Cr) mg/ kg
4.0 1.94 36 190 65
Cupper (Cu) mg/ kg
41.0 <0.01 85 530 50
Lead (Pb) mg/ kg
1316 612.2
Calcium (Ca) mg/ kg
11.17 140 720 200

Zinc (Zn) mg/ kg 52.0

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Total Iron(Fe) mg/ kg 14.0 100.4 112.6 604.7
Sulphate (SO4²)mg/ kg 100 1920 300 1
<0.01
Nitrate N0 mg/ kg
3
-
243.0 13.8
Ammonia (NH4) mg/ kg <0.01
8.0 16.3 28.0 26.0
2318 18.7
Phosphate (P2O5) mg/ kg 52.0
Salinity as Chloride (Cl) mg/ 2358 47.5 142
kg 1,720
67.9 17.65 50 5000
TPH mg/ kg 80.0 0.50
<0.01 1 40 4000µg/
4,600 kg
PAH mg/ kg <0.01 0.02
Total Organic Carbon (TOC) 0.311
21,000 N/A 19,500
mg/kg 60.0
Sulphide (S2-),mg/kg 3.12 N/A <0.1 <0.01

Source: Otaiku, 2007

• DPRa1 mg/kg  - Target Value
• DPRa2 mg/kg- Intervention Value

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 Way forward...

In order to drive the necessary development in

bioremediation technology, it is essential to have a
supportive legislation.
The results presented here are very few of the many
efforts that have gone into both development of new
and establishment of existing facts about the
potency of bioremediation processes at TPH and
PAH degradation.
It is also important to support local development of
products through incentives and patents for
commercial production.
A starting point is the development of a bioremediation
programme for Nigeria, using established
indigenous products.

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