Scientists aim to boost world energy supplies -- with microbes!

The research team also discovered that the geological timescale of this process could be shortened to a few hundred days in the laboratory by feeding the oil-based microbes with special nutrients. They reasoned that similar results could be obtained in an oilfield in a timescale of a year to tens of years.

Professor Head, an environmental microbiologist in the Institute for Research on Environment and Sustainability at Newcastle University, commented: 'The research we published was important scientifically because it settled an argument that has been running for decades about how oil is degraded in oilfields; it turns out it is converted to natural gas.

'The discovery of how this process works could have major implications for the oil and gas industry because we think we will be able to extend the 20-30 year operating lifespan of a typical oil reservoir.

In North East England, similar processes may occur in abandoned coal mines, opening the door to a possible means for recovery of the region's extensive abandoned energy resources as clean-burning methane, said Professor Head.

Both Newcastle and Calgary universities have financial stakes in Profero Energy, which is being financed with an initial £500,000, and a further £4 million earmarked for the future, by Novotech Investments Ltd, a venture capital company which was established to provide backing for very high value new technologies. Novotech has also invested in e-Therapeutics plc, which has powerful new drug discovery technology, and OGS Ltd, which is developing post-Google search engine technology, with UK Government help. Both of these companies are derived from research at Newcastle University.

David Rafter, a Canadian businessman specialising in technology start-ups, has been appointed Chief Executive of Profero Energy. He has negotiated with an oil company for the use of the worked-out oil well in Canada to conduct the trials.

'In a couple of years time we should know a lot more about how this technology works in practice and what proportion of the oil which is currently unrecoverable could be converted to methane gas,' he said. 'Even a small fraction could be a very attractive commercial proposition.'