Abstract: The applications of biotechnology have gained popularity in the petroleum industry in recent times as an excellent alternative approach to some of the conventional oilfield operations due to its environment friendly impact and sustainability. The approaches mainly depend on the use of micro-biological systems, living organisms or parts of it to develop or create group of essential products for the petroleum industry. For example, fracturing and drilling fluid breakers, bio- surfactants, and Bio-mineralization for different field applications. In addition, the recent advancements in molecular technology have made high throughput sequencing more accessible and affordable. The petroleum industry is studying renewable and clean sources of energy like the biofuels, genetically modified organisms capable of producing bio-polymers and other chemicals, cost-effective chemical bio-processes as an alternative to the traditional routes. This has revolutionized our understanding of microbial diversity within oilfield samples. This paper will give a comprehensive overview of where biotechnology stand on petroleum industry and highlights the potential biotechnological solutions for different challenges in this industry, and the opportunities offered by microbes as positive use or as bio-catalyst that increase the revenues of oil and gas industry operation, and bacteria that enhanced oil recovery (MEOR). Or, bacteria that has possibilities of encouraging competitive microbes to grow, to suppress the activities of troublesome bacteria to control the microbial souring.

Bio: Dr. Abdulmohsen holds a PhD with specialty in Petroleum applied Biotechnology and he has served Saudi Aramco for the last 27 years. Abdulmohsen is leading the biotechnology program with in the Saudi Aramco EXPEC Advance Research Center. In his career, Abdulmohsen has published a total of 55 papers as 1st author, and his research work has resulted in developing 15 granted patents. In addition, he has led international and national academic collaborations and led several international joint technology projects (JIP) to develop new technologies. He supervised and was selected to be an external examiner for national and international universities for PhD and MSc students. His research interests include mitigation of microbial influence corrosion, biofilm development and control, Biocide development and screening, Drilling mud microbial contamination and mitigation, reservoir souring and plugging.