1

The abstract has well written and has captured all that are needed in this section. However, has needs to be replaced with have to agree with the subjects in line 17 in the abstract, ".. Bacillus pumilus KS2 and B. cereus R2 (identified by 16s rRNA sequencing) #has (have) shown"

2

In the introduction, there should be adequate citations to support the authors claim about the contaminated nature of Assam. Also, other sections of the introduction lack citations that should have been added.

3

the research questions, hypothesis and aim of the study were not clearly stated in the introduction.

4

in the methods section, the researcher have written in much detaail to reproducibilty. However, the sample size was not clearly mention in the paper. Also, experimental design approach was not mentionedin the paper.

5

Although the researchers had adequately described the methods of data analysis in great detail, they did not adequately mentioned level of significance (p value) in most cases in the results and discussions sections except in few places. For example, "biosurfactant producing Bacillus sp. showed a #significantly higher degradation of crude oil compared to many recent reports...)

6

the authors had concluded based on their objectives.

On the overall, the paper has a very significant impact in the advancement of petroleum microbiology as it has added useful information to the body of knowledge. It has also suggested a gap that can be filled in future research.