Even in times of renewable energy revolution fossil fuels will play a major role in energy supply, transportation, and chemical industry. Therefore, increasing demand for crude oil will still have to be met in the next decades by developing new oil re-serves. To cope with this challenge, companies and researchers are constantly seeking for new methods to increase the recovery factor of oil fields. For that reason, many enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods have been developed and applied in the field. EOR methods alter the physico-chemical conditions inside the reservoir. One possibility to achieve this is to inject an aqueous solution containing special chemicals into the oil-bearing zone. Polymers, for example, increase the viscosity of the injected water and hence improve the displacement of the oil to the production well. The injection of surfactant solutions results in reduced capillary forces, which retain the oil in the pores of the reservoir. Some surfactants form viscoelastic solutions under certain conditions. The possibil-ity to apply those solutions for enhanced oil recovery has been investigated by some authors in the last years in low salinity brines. Reservoir brines, however, often contain high salt concentrations, which have detrimental effects on the properties of many chemical solutions applied for EOR operations. The Triphenoxymethane derivatives, which were the subject of study in this thesis, form viscoelastic solutions even in highly saline brines. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the efficiency and the mode-of-action of this new class of chemical EOR molecules with respect to oil mobilization in porous media.

Environmental management has become a part of societal life and a dominant issue for every sector of economies in the developed world. However, due to the absence of EMS the Libyan petroleum companies are not able to compete in the international petroleum sector. The rules and regulations specified by developed countries concerning environmental protection are becoming highly challenging. These have posed tremendous difficulties for both the government of Libya, as well as the petroleum companies to meet the national and international legislative requirements. Since 1999, Libya has been transformed by aligning itself according to the requirements and expectations of the industrial nations of the world and has, therefore, in this process of transformation, already become one of the competitive nations in the petroleum sector. The country has started to attract international investment by companies and individuals from all over the world. The change of Libyan economic policy towards open markets and the signing of many international agreements incorporating legal concerns related to biodiversity, climate change, endangered species, hazardous wastes, marine dumping, and ozone layer protection in their system. This has subsequently enabled the Libyan petroleum industry to make efforts to set up some basic procedures to improve environmental performance. This is an enormous interdisciplinary work, which requires a lot of effort. The present work aims to introduce an internationally accepted environmental management system according to the ISO 14001 standard to enable the oil industry remove the prevalent deficiencies as far as environmental management is concerned in the industry. This work uses AGOCO as a model company for case study analyses, which would provide an excellent opportunity for the implementation of EMS in accordance with ISO 14001 in all petroleum companies of Libya. The detailed analysis is based on the cumulative assessment of the current environmental management manual of AGOCO, interviews with some of the company’s personnel and telephone communications with some employees of the company. The analysis reveals the strengths and weaknesses in the concerning EMS planning, implementation, checking and review. Using AGOCO as a benchmark for all other petroleum companies, the work has resulted in the formulation of procedures to be followed by the other companies in compliance with the international standards.

Den technologischen Hintergrund für diese Arbeit liefert die bei der Erschließung tiefer Lagerstätten (Erdgas, Erdöl, Erdwärme) eingesetzte Stimulationstechnik des Hydraulic Fracturing. Bei dieser Technik werden mittels hydraulischem Druck Risse im Lagerstättengestein erzeugt, die durch Einspülen von Feststoffkörnern (Proppants) offengehalten werden sollen. Der inhaltliche Schwerpunkt liegt auf der theoretischen und experimentellen Untersuchung der Einbettung von Proppants in das Lagerstättengestein unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Einflusses auf die hydraulische Leitfähigkeit eines durch Proppants gestützten Risses. Thematisch teilt sich die Arbeit in die beiden Schwerpunkte: (1) Berechnung der Proppant-Einbettung auf der Grundlage kontaktmechanischer Ansätze und (2) experimentelle Untersuchungen an realen Proppant-Schüttungen. Zur mathematischen Formulierung der Proppant-Einbettung wurde die in der Werkstofftechnik entwickelte Theorie des mechanischen Verhaltens rauer Oberflächen unter Lasteintrag (Kontaktmechanik) mit der ebenfalls aus der Werkstofftechnik bekannten Messung und Interpretation der Oberflächenhärte nach Meyer gekoppelt. Diese neuartige Formulierung ermöglicht es, die Einbettung von Proppants in Abhängigkeit der Materialeigenschaften der Formation, des Spannungszustandes, der Korngrößenverteilung und der Proppants-Konzentration zu berechnen. Zur Prognose des Erfolges einer Stimulation wurde ein 2D-numerischer Algorithmus (MATLAB®) entwickelt, der den Gesamtprozess der Einbettung, der Durchlässigkeitsentwicklung und deren Folgen für die Produktivität der Sonden widerspiegelt. Zur Verifizierung des Berechnungsalgorithmus wurde die Einbettung realer Proppant-Schüttungen in Lagerstättengesteinen (Tonschiefer, Shale) untersucht. Hierfür wurde in einer dafür konzipierten Flutzelle ein durch Proppants gestützter Riss nachgebildet, belastet und durchströmt. Ziel der Versuche war dabei zu messen, welchen Einfluss ein Spannungsanstieg auf die Einbettung und damit auf die hydraulische Leitfähigkeit hat. Diese Versuche wurden an zwei verschiedenen Shale-Gesteinen mit zwei verschiedenen Proppant-Konzentrationen durchgeführt. Zusätzlich zu den hydraulischen Experimenten wurden mechanische Untersuchungen (Härtemessungen) ausgeführt und nach der Meyer-Analyse der Werkstofftechnik interpretiert. Ein besonderer Vorteil dieser Auswertungsmethode liegt in ihrer durch Dimensionsanalyse erzielten Übertragbarkeit der Ergebnisse von Werkstoffen auf Gesteine. Der Vergleich von gemessenen und berechneten Einbettungen und hydraulischen Leitfähigkeiten ergab eine zufriedenstellende Übereinstimmung und erlaubt es festzustellen, dass mit der neuen Formulierung die planerische Voraussage von Frac-Stimulation möglich ist, wobei alleine die relativ einfachen laborativen Messverfahren zur Härtemessung (Gestein) und zur Korngrößenanalyse (Proppant) erforderlich sind.

Even in times of renewable energy revolution fossil fuels will play a major role in energy supply, transportation, and chemical industry. Therefore, increasing demand for crude oil will still have to be met in the next decades by developing new oil re-serves. To cope with this challenge, companies and researchers are constantly seeking for new methods to increase the recovery factor of oil fields. For that reason, many enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods have been developed and applied in the field. EOR methods alter the physico-chemical conditions inside the reservoir. One possibility to achieve this is to inject an aqueous solution containing special chemicals into the oil-bearing zone. Polymers, for example, increase the viscosity of the injected water and hence improve the displacement of the oil to the production well. The injection of surfactant solutions results in reduced capillary forces, which retain the oil in the pores of the reservoir. Some surfactants form viscoelastic solutions under certain conditions. The possibil-ity to apply those solutions for enhanced oil recovery has been investigated by some authors in the last years in low salinity brines. Reservoir brines, however, often contain high salt concentrations, which have detrimental effects on the properties of many chemical solutions applied for EOR operations. The Triphenoxymethane derivatives, which were the subject of study in this thesis, form viscoelastic solutions even in highly saline brines. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the efficiency and the mode-of-action of this new class of chemical EOR molecules with respect to oil mobilization in porous media.

We theoretically and experimentally investigate the impact of pore space structure, wettability, and surface roughness on the displacement front, trapping, and sweeping efficiency at low capillary numbers. The microstructure of (i) 2D geologically-realistic media (2D natural sand and sandstone), (ii) a topological 3D-2D-transformation (2D sand analog), and (iii) geometrically representative media (Delaunay Triangulation) were studied over a wide range of wettability from water-wet to oil-wet systems provided by using various fluid-pairs. We observed the transition (compact to fractal) in the displacement front caused by local instabilities identified by Cieplak and Robbins. The trapping efficiency of 2D natural microstructures showed a non-monotonous dependency on wettability, whereas a crossover from no trapping to maximal trapping was observed in 2D patterns of circular grains. For the first time, we compared identical experimental microstructures with simulation, capturing the key elements of the invasion process. We demonstrated that corner flows occur particularly in low-porosity media, where the smaller grain-grain distance hindered the corner-flow bridging. These insights could improve the CO2 geological storage and Enhanced Oil Recovery processes.