Development of petroleum microbiology in China
(Eingpgnngen a m 15. 12.1983) Pctroleum microbiology in China begun in 1955 with studies on gaseous hydrocarbon-oxidizing bacteria and microbiological petroleum-prospecting method (1). Since the sixties, the following work has been done: studies of oil field microorganisms and their application in the petroleum industry; the role of microorganisms in conversion of organic sediments; and the deparaffining of oil prodncts; production of single cell protein as well as organic acids etc.
This paper gives a review of this research work done in China.
Gaseous hgdrocarbon-oxi(lizin~ bacteria and microbiological petroleom-prospecting met hod
From 1955 to 1971 microbiological analysis of soils for gaseous hydrocarbon oxidation were performed a t about 40 known and unknown oil-areas. Results indicated that the efficiency of this method was more than 65% of tested areas. We observed that the distribution of gaseous hydrocarbon-oxidizing bacteria depended mainly on the seasons, the pH of soils and the fracture spacing in the formation. Ethane-oxidizing bacteria were spread more widely. CHANG et al. (2) identified a strain of ethane-oxidizing bacteria as Mycobacterium lacticolum var. ethanicum. I n recent years CHEN et al. (3-5) have been studying the taxonomy of methaneoxidizing bacteria. They reported two new genera of bacteria utilizing methane as a sole carbon and energy source : Polysporobacterium gen. now. (3) and Echinosporobacterium gen. nov. (4). The most remarkable feature of Polysporobacterium is its mode of