Awards

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Executive Oil Conference Honors Micro-Bac®

It all began in 1979 in Austin with a simple idea: use natural microbial  processes to let nature clean itself up in a variety of applications from wastewater treatment to downhole paraffin and corrosion in the oil field. It was an idea that worked.

Energy Award for Technology winner J.M. Morales moved to Austin in 1977 to retire from a 20-year career as a mechanical engineer in the sheet metal industry. Instead, his interest in microbiology and the environment let him to start Micro-Bac International, Inc.®, in 1979 while researching a microbial treatment to reduce sludge in sewage treatment ponds. In 1986, the company developed the first microbial treatments for long-term control of paraffin, corrosion and scale downhole and in other oil-field systems. Micro-Bac has since added other oil-field remediation microbes to its arsenal.

The company now based in Round Rock, TX, north of Austin, uses only naturally occurring microbes - no genetic engineering is involved. The company isolates microbes, which are non-pathogenic, meaning they will not cause diseases in humans. Because most microbes have an appetite for only certain things, each strain must be tested to determine what it's hungry for before it can be used in any field application.

Then the "good" bacteria, or microbe, must be "fed" the right nutrients in the right environment (temperature, humidity, etc.) to generate mass quantities. Because of their increased number, specific diet and hearty constitution, the microbes are ready to take on large jobs.

Twenty-five years after its founding, Micro-Bac® now does business worldwide, including Latin America, Asia and Europe as well as the United States and Canada.

The Executive Oil Conference's award only adds to a long list of achievements already given to Morales. In 1992, he was a finalist for Ernst and Young's Entrepreneur of the Year. He has been listed in a number of Who's Who publications including its Hall of Fame in 1996. Hart's Petroleum Engineer International Magazine awarded Morales a special meritorious award for engineering achievement in 1991, and four years later Hart's Oil & Gas World Magazine gave him the Best of the Northeast Certificate of Achievement for Best New Technology.