Not a biologist, but I would guess that adding oil-digesting bacteria beyond the carrying capacity is very inefficient. The bacteria would clean up oil for one

Not a biologist, but I would guess that adding oil-digesting bacteria beyond the carrying capacity is very inefficient. The bacteria would clean up oil for one generation and die. However, increasing the carrying capacity (e.g. by adding nitrogen as suggested in the article) lets the microbes reproduce, possibly exponentially (2^t).