Newcastle University and University of Calgary scientists expect to begin trials ih May to find out if microbes can unlock the vast amount of energy trapped in the world’s unrecoverable heavy oil deposits.

An estimated six trillion barrels of oil remain underground because the oil has become either solid or too thick to be brought to the surface at economic cost by conventional means.

The scientists’ research has revealed that two types of microbes found in environments containing crude oil were responsible for converting it into methane.

They 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.