How Do Oil Pumpjacks Work?
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Published 2018-03-06
For anyone who has ever driven through the southern United States or other oil-rich areas, you likely are familiar with the sight of oil derricks. These metal moving hammer-like structures work to extract oil from underground – often in the middle of nowhere. All this probably leaves you wondering, how do they actually work and what happens to the oil once it's taken from below ground?
Called pumpjacks, oil horses, oil derricks, these large metal structures are crucial to supplying the US and ultimately the world with its oil needs. They function as traditional sucker rod pumps, known more technically as reciprocating piston pumps, and are made up of 5 parts: the prime mover, the crank, the samson posts, the walking beam, and the sucker rod.
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All Comments (21)
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What's incredible is that in less than 100 years we went from traveling with horses to landing on the moon but the oil pumps are pretty much the same as back in the days
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One interesting thing to note is that the horsehead has a precision curve that provides a fixed distance between the tangent of the curve and the pivot point of the walking beam (i.e. constant radius). This allows the shaft of the pump to move in a perfect vertical motion.
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First time I ever saw one of these in person, I was traveling either through southern Illinois or into Missouri. Was a real thrill to see these machines that I had only seen in cartoons since I was a kid.
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A very 'crude' explanation.......
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You’ve explained something that I’ve always wondered about. Thanks
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When I became a pumpjack technician, I fell in love with learning about pumpjacks, and down-hole operations. I wish I could have been born years ago to experience it for many more years than I'll likely get to in my life time.
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An old family friend of mine lived way out in the woods of Texas and about a mile down this gravel road at the start of his driveway there were two of these, and one day I walked down there to watch them. It had three massive tanks and one of them happened to be unlocked at the top and the ladder was open so I went up and looked in. Never seen that much oil before but it was still a fun memory as a kid
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As a former servicing rig and drilling rig rough neck back in the 70s, this brought back memories.
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As one of the other commenters pointed out, an "oil derrick" is actually a tower that is set up OVER the well and pumping unit to enable servicing of the well when necessary. For many years, these towers -- similar to the towers used to drill the well in the first place -- were left standing over the well and pumping unit for years; since about 1960, however, they are more commonly folded up on large trucks and driven from well to well, so few if any wells have permanent "derricks" standing over them anymore. The rocking "pumping units," however, are still quite common in oil fields. Otherwise a very good video!
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I call it the lil pump
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Thanks for watching! This video takes a look at pumpjacks, colloquially referred to as Oil Derricks and oil horses. “Oil derricks” themselves are the hoisting structure used for drilling. After the oil well is tapped, then these pump jacks are used to extract the oil.
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im a kid who always goes trucking with my dad so i see these things ALL THE TIME i knew what they were called and everything but always wondered what happened underground thanks for the video!
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I work in the oil field here in texas as a lease operator, i check this units every day. This are called pumping units also known as pumpjacks in the slang language. Derrick is the platform used on drilling rigs and pulling units. And the pumps used in this type of wells do not look like that. Thats more like a pump used in old water wells
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Worked with pump jacks for 35 years. Just looking at you title told me all I needed to know about you vid.
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One of the many reasons why I love youtube. I passed by a few of these today on a business trip in Oklahoma and wanted to know how they worked.
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I’m an oilfield mechanic in northern Michigan, I repair and maintain the engines that run pump units.
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I'm an Alberta rigger, and have worked on MANY of these. Removing, and installing the horsehead can be fun at times!
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Going on a road-trip out of Texas and just passed some of these and was reminded that I had no idea how they worked! Super informational video
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I've always like seeing the ones that are painted as grasshoppers. Some in southwest Texas even welded antennea's on them!
