Hi I'm a cnc machinist, I work on Wire and sinker edm's, my company has a major focus in precision micro manufacturing and metrology , and have been waiting for your in-depth on edm. anyways I wouldn't mind a video on oil pumps and Drills.
Just your average joe passing through from the RU-vid algorithm. Really appreciate you sharing this since I know nothing about oil production or oil production equipment. That little bit of water and oil it produces is helpful because it supplies us with oil that can be used for cooking food, boiling water to make clean water, and heating our homes. Every little bit counts! Thanks for keeping it running, its a neat piece of history.
I’m from the Texas panhandle and I’ve worked most of my adult life in the oil field. I hope we can keep this oil patch history alive. I had an old man try to explain this to me one day at the sight of a very old multi bore water flood. Some of this equipment was left behind but not enough to make sense. It dawned on me that this is what he was trying to explain.
Holy smokes, I had an epiphany. Now I know where all these tie rods and bolts came from laying all over the farm in the back slough. Now it's all starting to make sense. And my grandpa is the sort to not throw anyhting away, but we never understood what this stuff was. He had old rail ties and stuff like that laying around also, so we thought maybe it was some railroad stuff but now this makes sense. Of course it's all the modern grasshoppers out there pumping away since I could remember. Thanks for this video. Love the simplicity and soothing ryhtym of this old pump jack. Cheers from western Canada.
@@chadachwilliam5515I had bought and sold a 1935 IH c-1 pickup truck. The steel in that truck was unlike any I've ever seen. It could sit in the wet ground since the 1950s and not disappear like modern steel would in less than 5 years and wasn't seized or welded like modern stuff would also be
@@tomfromoz makes perfect sense. Kinda like how they get an engine perfected they redesign it so it's gonna fail no matter what unless you tear it down and replace gaskets ,ect at a regular interval or replace the gaskets with stronger ones that will not fail made from rubber and steel instead of plastic and silicone. It's obvious to me that is a form of job security
@@chadachwilliam5515 Yeah, steel back then was tough stuff. A buddies daughter bought a house built in the 1930's that still has knob and tube wiring. I replaced the wiring in the garage and pulled out the knobs that held the wire. The knobs are 2 piece porcelain with a nail that hold the 2 porcelain pieces together. The wire goes between the 2 porcelain pieces and the nail driven into the wood, holding the wire. The nail is maybe the size of a 20d nail and I could barely cut one in half with both hands and hardened dykes. Todays nails don't even come close to being that tough.
I worked the oil fields in Wyoming and Colorado in the 1970’s. It used to amaze me how much difference there was in the oil from the wells. I lived and worked in Powder Wash Colorado. The oil from the wells in that field would any where from a light tan to green or black in color. Those wells often would be within sight of other wells and producing oil of a different color and viscosity.
There was a guy on TV who showed the oil that came out of his well in Louisiana. The “crude” that came out of the ground was a beautiful golden color and looked like refined motor oil.
I'm about 10 years older than that well! I gotta tell ya these videos are treasures to many of us. Having retired from the oil/gas/power gen field in 2015, I miss some of the sights and sounds of the oil patch. These videos are very nostalgic for me! Thanks, Zach!
It’s nice to hear you say that. I’ve worked in the oilfield most of my life. I was laid off in 2020 during the COVID slow down. Now I work in Biogas, and I sure miss the oilfield. It gets in you, it’s hard to explain to people.
Thanks for sharing some of your history! My grandfather and his partner operated wells in Oklahoma from 1972 until 2020 then grandpa passed and his partner went downhill and into a nursing home around the same time. Nobody in my family took the time to learn anything about the business other than me, I started helping them every summer at age 12, then pumping pretty much full time at 16…now the business has been left to me and his partner’s daughter to run. I’ll be 31 this year and can’t put into words how honored and blessed I feel being able to continue what they worked so hard for. We’ve only got 18 producers left but I fully intend to keep them going for another 30 years and pass them on to the next generation!
@@TheZachLife Thanks buddy, I’ve always thought about starting a YT channel similar to yours but I’m a little camera shy and don’t think I could explain it all as eloquently as you do haha. It’s great info and motivation for us younger guys in the patch, Keep it up man! 👍🏻
@@pinkelephants1421 I’m fully aware of what’s going on in the world and you’d be a nut to think I don’t have investments in a few green companies/technologies as well. I may have to reassess my statement in 15-20 years but for the time being global peak oil demand isn’t forecasted to occur until 2040 so I’m not too concerned. Also, passenger vehicles only account for 26% of oil usage world wide so it really doesn’t matter if everyone starts driving EVs overnight, it’s not going to hurt business much. Transportation as a whole consumes 68% of oil produced, so perhaps once the tech is here to electrify planes, trains and ships we will worry.. but even that leaves 28million barrels per day of consumption on the table that’s used for chemicals, plastics and other products that can only be sourced from crude. I just don’t see it disappearing in my lifetime… Production in the US may eventually be banned but it will still be produced somewhere and you will still be buying products made from it.
This was wonderful. Thank you so much. Talk about nostalgia. Every summer in the late 50's and early sixties, my family would go through the oil fields in Texas and Oklahoma, in our '56 Ford Country Squire station wagon, on Route 66. The fields would go for acres and acres, and I used to love to watch them and hear them. They almost seemed alive. I didn't realize there were any still left! It'd break my heart to see them disappear. It's like an old, faithful friend, never quitting, never giving up. I probably sound like a crazy old lady, but this just made my day. Thank you so much! ❤️🇺🇸
My dad was from Shamrock Tx. My grand dad a small country store outside of town in the 50's. I remember drinking my first Dr. Pepper from that store. :)
Pumping that oil out looks clean enough. And the oils gets refined and used locally. While lithium mining is filthy and poisonous. Then the ore gets shipped halfway around the world in huge ships that burns $100,000 worth of fuel a day and dump their shit in the oceans. Then the refined ore gets shipped halfway around the world to be made into batteries, and then the batteries get shipped halfway around the world to the consumers. The worst is then the poisonous dangerous spend batteries.
@@MrTangent Maybe you misunderstood me. I said pumping THAT oil out. You must admit it sure looks clean. I wonder how many other such clean oil wells their are in the world. I have never seen fracking done. Some say it is good, some say it is bad. Regarding the disruption in global climates, you must realizes that even the worst of us humankind pales to the power of nature. With the previous ten global warming cycles, there were no humans to blame. If the sun goes on one of it's four, 17 or 51 year cycles, then there is nothing you or me can do about it. Maybe the sun has even more long time cycles that we do not understand yet. Oil used to be plants, and plants depend on carbon to life. What is the ratio of man made carbon pollution to volcanic based carbon pollution? Yes, people are stupid, and pollution is wrong. But my point is that oil is not the devil, and others are angels.
@@Deontjie So there much good scientific information out there, and videos breaking it down for people, that will explain the heating and cooling cycle of the earth. Knowing the cold cycle to come in the next few hundred, maybe another couple thousand years, I would hate to rely on batteries for my heat ;)
Heck ya! Those Wells are still good wells. It basically cost pennies a day to run. I'm from West Texas and a 4 barrel a day was a keeper. Two thumbs up.
Of course these wells should be kept in service! Even if they’re not big producers-it’s what they represent, their importance and I think it’s very fascinating to see. Thanks for your videos.
"Oklahoma jacks" were all over the Pennsylvania oilfields when I was young. I remember the "eccentric" powers that ran them, with rod lines coming out of the powerhouses like spokes on a bicycle wheel. Thanks for the memories.
After I graduated high school in 1978, I worked in oilfield machine shops in Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Utah until the oil boom bust in the early 1980s. Working in the oil industry never leaves your soul, I miss being around the petroleum business.
I was a machinist during the oil boom and left that career path right before the oil bust in the 80’s. I use to make all kinds of oil tools including under reamers, whipstock packers, cementing tools, and junk mills. We made everything with manual machines until we finally purchased a CNC mill. I use to run an old Lodge and Shipley lathe with a taper attachment. The lathe came from a WW2 warship and still had a Navy tag on it. It was a great lathe and could really hog the steel.
Love hearing about your family's 4th generation operations. Great piece of history, thanks for posting. They still have a number of these rod lines running in West Virginia and Pennsylvania (maybe Kentucky too) but with some unique differences from what I've seen - everybody seems to have a different twist up there. The doll heads I saw were actually v-notched saplings or posts hammered into the ground, greased like you say. Many wells like this are operated using central pump houses incorporating a bull wheel and eccentric gear, with a number converted from steam to propane/gas, and some even electrified. I remember listening to those sounds too - classic!
I ran some numbers, & came up with guesstimate amount that rod going up & down in a year has traveled 5973 miles. Interesting video. See old stuff work is pretty neat.
Back in the late 90’s we were collecting plants on a ranch up near Canadian,TX and we visited a lease still using rod lines on their wells. One setup I’ll always remember had a central powerhouse with a big Fairbanks-Morse engine running a big horizontal wheel/disc cam. There were about 5 or 6 rod lines running out like spokes on a wagon wheel. Each line was hooked up to multiple pump jacks. It was an early engineering marvel I’ll never forget.
My Grandfather was in charge of the "power " and drag lines to a field of wells somewhere North of Tulsa, Oklahoma back in the 1930 and '40s. I remember duscussions about how he and a team of horses would maintain that location. I wish I had paid more attention to all that history. I'm 78 years old and all I remember was Grandpa after he had retired from that oilfield job. There is only one relative still alive that might fill me in on some of that history and I have to make it a special prodject to get that recorded some way. Thanks for showing us that special part of our history. Salute !!!
Just write down all the information you can get and any pictures and offer it to your local library, they will usually happily put that information somewhere for future generations that are interested We recently found a bunch of photos of my mother from when she was a kid because someone took pictures and wrote a little about what went on that year In our small town and just handed it to the local library
Enjoyed that a lot. I grew up on the prairie in Osage County Oklahoma and my dad was a pumper. On a small hill just above our house was a Power House, as they were called at the time. It was large, about 50' x 30' and made of tin. Some posters below have mentioned these. This one ran on propane or gas, with a large 1-cylinder motor driving a belt that turned that big heavy flywheel laid sideways in a shallow depression of the concrete floor. A large diameter exhaust pipe came out at about a 45-degree angle, probably 10" diameter, 6' long with a baloney-slice end. Any trucker would have been proud to hear it. About a dozen rod lines ran off the eccentric of that flywheel all across the landscape. Where it went under the gravel well roads there was a steel 10" casing pipe, and in the fall and winter we'd shove rabbits out to eat. Besides doll heads, our rod lines at intervals had a bipod swing, as it was called. Two vertical pipes about three feet apart and 5' tall or so. Between at the top was a cross pipe that could swing and got greased. From the center of this hung a smaller diameter pipe with a clamp to the rod. This allowed the rod to swing, but also got it elevated for changes uphill or downhill. We got so used to the faint but steady crashing of the jacks, as well as the engines on the wells that we almost needed them to fall asleep. We all knew when working cattle to beware the rod lines. Many a pumper had a fence around his company doghouse made of the rods. When the houses were taken out of service around there in the early 60's we bought one from Texaco, took it down and made a small barn for our horses.
There were still two operating power houses like you describe south of Calpet, Wyoming in the early 70s. Texaco still had a camp that I think was built in the 1940s. Texaco bought the lease those old pumpjacks were on and replaced them with electric motors. Belco Petroleum had a lot of pumpjacks in the area that had natural gas motors on them. Fortunately the wind drowned out the noise of all those engines so that we could sleep at night.
The breakdown of the math is great! It’s absolutely viable for these old wells to run their butt off for as long as they can. It’s great people like you and your buddies have interest and keep them running, with more and more oil projects getting shut down. That one well can support 30 people is an awesome fact.
@@Cragified Kinda like what I tell my kids when picking a fast food restaurant: pick the oldest one you can find. They've paid off all their loans so they can afford to use the best ingredients and hire the best workers.
Just started watching your channel always was fascinated with oil wells I grew up in Southern California near the beach where oil wells are everywhere. There was even some areas where oil seeps up through the ground makes a small pool of oil right on the ground you can hike to. I bet most people in the US have no idea just how much oil production goes on in Southern California oil wells are everywhere even right in the middle of the cites. Wouldn't know it now days unless you look at google earth they put walls around them. Don't listen to the negative comments I think it's really cool that you preserved the historic wells it's a part of American history where would America be without oil??
It'll be nice when renewables and electric vehicles means we can use this oil for what it's most magical at. medicines, plastics, chemicals and such. It really is a treasure we waste.
Man that's cool Zach! Please keep that old jack running as long as you can, it's so important, and just really cool to keep some history alive! Not just on display, but still alive and earning it's keep. I think it's really neat that you have 4 generations of family history too, don't see that much anymore. I enjoyed listening to racket of that old pump jack at the end of the video, little bit of time travel was fun 👍
I love watching your videos, I retired after 37 years working for a large independent oil company that had huge safety and environmental department's that made operations difficult, they would have a heart attack if the walked through your lease,
Wow. My Grandpa's wells in Pleasants County WV were almost exactly like that. The only difference was that instead of rods, he used wire lines running to all of his wells. He had an "engine house" where he had an air-cooled Wisconsin engine that ran on natural gas. It spun a really big "eccentric" that had rods connected to it, and Grandpa then had wire lines that connected to the rods going out to the wells. He pumped at least 4 or 5 wells with that one engine. I know all about under pull and over pull jacks. Going up and down the hillside, he had to have 'hold-ups" and "hold-downs" for the wire lines so that the pump jacks were actually pulled by the engine, rather than the lines just shooting up and down in the air (like if a hold-down failed). When that happened, the pulling force was not transferred to the pump jacks. I helped him splice many wire lines that broke or to repair a hold-down that came loose at the bottom, etc. Trees falling on the wire lines was another problem. It was hard work for a teen age boy. LOL
I myself being from Pleasants Co. WV and I just happened to click on this channel about these jack lines pumping these wells. I remember going to a neighbors old homeplace out from New Matamoras, Ohio somewhere close to the Little Muskingum River, and seeing these iron lines running along the ground ....still pumping. I was just a kid. Now 79 years old myself. Remember it very vivid ally to this day. My Grandpa was Bernard Riggs and he as a young man worked on the oil fields out around Horseneck, Pleasants Co. I'm just curious as to who you are ....and perhaps my name is familiar to you.?? My name is Jack Riggs, and I grew up in St.Marys and lived just across the hiway from Quaker State refinery.
@@jackriggs1108 Your name sounds familiar, but probably from family connections. My Grandfather's name was Benton Green, and he lived for a time in St. Marys. He was born out at Henry Camp, and that was where his lease was. My name is Thomas Delany and I live in Tennessee now.
@@jackriggs1108 My Great Aunts, Fonda and Grace Locke lived in a house on 2nd Street in St. Mary's, and I recall fondly sitting on their front porch as a kid, watching trains go down the street in front of their house.
Great video on the old rod line pumper! In 1950 was First Grader living south of Corsicana and went to sleep many nights to the sound of an old Hit and Miss pulling some rod line pumpers. The few minutes on the end of the video sure was neat to hear those old sounds! Thanks for the memory.
Brings back memories. Back in the 80's I worked for a drilling contractor out of Nowata OK. When we weren't drilling wells in Osage County we were washing down and plugging wells like this in the Tulsa area. The rod lines ran everywhere and were powered by a big steel wheel in a huge wheel house. Fun to warch, thanks!
The steel wheel in a wheel house sounds like what I came across just outside of Sperry. I have pics I wish I could show you to see if it is what you're talking about.
I am the same age as this well, I was in the exploration, started as a roughneck and worked my way to a driller from 1979 - 1987. Sourlake TX is where I ran into same theory but using sucker rod layer on the 3" by 3" 10 ''or 20 ft boards all connected end to end across the ground from a wheel house to the pump jacks. A huge locomotive looking cast iron wheel with a Diesel engine or maybe a steam engine in the early days mover sucker rod across the oiled wood runs for miles to 25 too 50 wells. The crazy think was the holding tanks were made of wood like a keg or large barrel to hold the oil pumped out of the ground. Pipelines ran very where along the ground from the wells the the wooded holding tanks ... Thank you for you channel and explaining what really goes on in the old days
My grandfather who I was named for lost some fingers in a rod line somewhere here in N. Texas. I don't know when he was injured but he was working on a drilling rig in Electra when my mother was born in 1919. He later was a pumper and a roustabout so I am guessing it was when he was a pumper. He died around 1950 before I was born in 1952. My father never worked in the oilfield but I spent 8 years roughnecking and drilling so I somewhat returned to my roots.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate this video. I know nothing about oil wells but I do love machinery. Thank You for this. I will be researching old oil wells now until I'm satisfied. I think people need to learn something new every day and you supplied a new topic for me.
When I was in high school up in Borger , TX I would ride around the oilfield roads during the summer (before I started working at a paving company). I found a big wheel (bull wheel) laid out horizontally on the ground. I can't say for sure but if memory serves me right the wheel was at least 10' in diameter. Sucker rods were connected to the eccentrics on the wheel (I think) and they went out to pump jacks, or what was left of them. I was told that a steam engine drove the wheel with a belt but I never saw that. My dad built gas plants for a living, I followed in his shoes and I have spent my life working in oil and gas. I have worked for a large privately owned oil and gas company for about 12 or 13 years. We have production, crude oil pipelines and pumps stations, gas pipelines, gas gathering, and gas processing plants in numerous states including Alaska. It's good to see someone putting a positive light on our industry. Hydrogen and carbon... that's all it is...
Really cool family history! Great videos also! Definitely would be worth a RU-vid video to go thur all your old photos and history of everything on the oil lease.
Im in Oklahoma myself. Have recently found your channel. Love the old wells. My grandfather owned some land many many years ago that had a few wells on it. One was steam powered everything was still there but hadnt been in use for some time.
We still have rod lines on the striper wells in Montana. Been all over the world as a specialty petroleum engineer but went to school in Montana back in the '70s started oilfield work in the summers while in high school on worker overs and drilling rigs before going to school; I spent time in the west and east and south Texas offshore also. Your videos being back both fond and a few nightmare memories
I restore 100 year old Cast Iron FDNY Fire Alarms. The metal is just as good today as it was in 1921. There is very little deep penetration. Almost ALL of it is Surface Rust. Our Grandparents were way smarter than we will ever hope to be. They were craftsman back then. 63 year old oil well still working. Amazing.
Thank You ! I can remember the clank of the rod lines and the exhaust of the power unit chugging away so slowly in the summer nights, it's a sound and memory that I don't think I can forget growing up in Oklahoma. I miss it, very fond memories for me...
You have been trained well by your grandfather and father. You are one of a very few people that can get the job done. I retired a few years ago from oil well supply store in North Central Texas because of the young ones that came to work and says that’s not my job. Maybe you could charge people for a ride along. Love your channel.
For those like me that were born and raised in Oklahoma, seeing those units is a common occurrence. Even so, you put an interesting perspective on them by telling about the history and how they operate. Makes all the difference. My only connection to the oil industry is that my grandfather retired from Apco Oil in the 70's.
Wow, Zach..This pumpjack is the neatest video yet. What a joy to see this still in operation!! Your great grandpa, grandpa, and Dad would be very proud of you for continuing this producing well, what a tribute to them. I am so glad you are keeping this going. I was wondering if old oil pump jack leases like this would qualify for historical site recognition and state grant funding to keep them preserved. You really have something here that needs to be kept going for future generations. I am glad you are planning on keeping this jack operating. Up here where I live we have two rod lines still operating in Crawford County, IL near Oblong and Robinson, IL. They are powered by old Superior engines that are housed in wood pump houses. The operator, whom I have met, even has the old Tulsa wooden oil tanks. The tanks are housed inside a vented wooden shed. The state of Illinois wants to shut them down, but he keeps them going. You would absolutely love seeing it. I can give you more info if you like. They have tours of the rod lines available at the Oblong, IL Engine Show held the second weekend in August each year. You can RU-vid it to see some video of it. Thanks for another excellent post...keep them coming.
Small World I made two trips a week up Ill highway 45 and Hwy 1 and went to the Palestine corn gas plant to get Wet Cake for a cattle feed lot. Thats just East of Robinson. Seeing all those oil wells that are working up there amazed Me. There was one right next to the highway just North of the Hwy 141 jct. And a place right across from it where I could pull the old Pete and 48 ft trailer off the road. I would stop and walk over and watch that large hit and miss engine run and at night the flame was pretty. I often stopped and got in the sleeper and slept real good listening to the Hit and Miss engine run. If I was to win the Lottery I would buy a oil lease and run it until the money was all gone or I take the dirt nap. wichever came first LOL.
@@thecollectoronthecorner7061 Wow, glad you got to experience the Oblong and Robinson, IL oil fields. I love driving through southern IL, it is very nostalgic for sure. Are you located in southern IL also?
I was born in 1950 so I have a pretty good feel for how long your lease has been operating. It's good to see small operators are still hard at work. Thanks for sharing.
Good Day All, I Live In SW Ontario Canada (Sombra) Not Far From The Oil Museum Of Canada (NHS) There Are Still Working Wells With Jerk Rod Pumps, There Is A Continues Connection Of Wooden Rods From A Main Motor To Each Well. The Town Of Petrolia And Oil Springs And Oil City Are Nearby.
Some of the jacks in Russia and the former Soviet Republics (the -stans) still use equipment used during the time of the Czars (pre-1917). Keep going strong.
Love the channel, some of the reasons, you are not pretentious, you make learning about the topic interesting and you are very knowledgeable. I have 2,490 questions I would like to ask lol and maybe you can answer some of these in new videos? Content idea! What is the one lease you had a chance to buy but didn't and wished you had? What does it produce now? Can you drill deeper and put newer equipment on say that Oklahoma Jack and if so would it produce more oil? How do they get the sand out of the oil? What is the biggest danger of your job? What is the cheapest lease you bought and how has it paid in return? What is your overhead yearly? What is your favorite thing about what you do? What is the worst thing? Will you ever drill new wells on the leases?
My grandfather was a pumper in Washington County ok. I can remember going with him to the lease. I can remember the rod house and old pump Jack's. Everything you have shown sure does bring back alot of memories. Thanks.
I saw a lot of these driving through Oklahoma this winter, I thought it was pretty interesting. Also got gas for less than 2$ a gallon someplace down there, and it must have been some high grade gasoline, because I got 516 miles out of that tank of gas, and it wasn't overly windy or anything. Just seemed like higher quality petrol. Also, looked at the map, and didn't gain or loose much in terms of altitude either over that 516 miles.
Absolutely love the content buddy! I’m from western Pennsylvania and our area is riddled with those old wells. It’s neat to finally have someone teach me about how they work
As a kid in Texas, I'm still here by choice, my dad would describe what sounds I was hearing as pump units running on hit and miss engines, and explain what was going on. Needing to know more, he'd walk me out to see for myself. Looking at 'Oil Patch' cartoons, I could imagine working the oil wells in the west Texas, a dream that has yet to hit reality. I drive through Saratoga and Batsun when going to his place now, and see them and reminisce. Thanks
You did a great job breaking down why these older and smaller wells are important! Similar to smaller farmers are important! You put forth a lot of good logic showing why many don't exhibit common sense in some areas! One thing you didn't mention is that the money spent on the oil from your wells goes to someone who actually cares about America and that money goes into the American economy!! ... And not some foreign oil dealer who either hates America or could care less about America! Thank you for showing us this well and equipment! I hope it is in your family for 4 more generations!!
One jack might not make enough for but 30 people... but as many as 45 jacks could run off a larger stationary engine, enough for a small town of over 1000. Of course modern wells are deeper... and wells like this drying up are what forced us to go deeper, and then to start fracking when that started running out. You would need 1000 such lines to maintain enough oil at those flow rates for minimal modern society to function... most likely the flow rate was much higher in the hay day of these pump jacks.
Zach, great channel! It is very interesting to learn about all of the equipment used In the oil fields. Especially on the small scale operations. I remember hearing the old water pump jacks in the canyon I lived as a kid. Sounded like bull frogs!
I love this. thank you. I miss working the oil patch in the DJ basin. too many ups and downs that it was hard to budget for a family. it was simple yet hard work. Some of the wells we maintained in the Pawnee Grasslands and also around Walden, Colorado on the western slope were drilled over a century ago. I know the Pawnees have been modernized due to fracking but the wells around Walden are still the same, producing maybe a barrel a day and some doing 10 to 20.
Maybe last in Oklahoma, but In Crawford county Illinois we have several pump houses left that power s series of wells around them. The term barker well is applied to the pump because the power house has an exhaust barker so the operator can tell the power unit is still operating from his home . The two pump houses 2milies from home were built in the first decade of 1900
Hey Zach. Nice to know I'm not the only one hung up on his grandpas all oilfield stuff. I remember walking to the power house to knock off an under pull with my dad so they could pull it when I was a kid.
Very cool. About 15 years ago, I was running a small esp on an old lease way off the beaten path in SE Kansas. I took a different route out of there, and ran across an old power house with about 5 of these running off of it. I had to stop and let it all soak in. Another tech I worked with was a big hunter, and was out chasing raccoons one night. He about freaked out when he felt something start moving under his feet. He had stumbled upon another old power house lease NE of Tulsa a little ways, and was on the old shackle rod buried under the grass. I also remember stumbling across the old draw works(really not sure what it’s called, but the unit that the shackle rods hooked to) of a power house mostly buried in the dirt south of Kilgore many years ago. I love the history of the patch. So much to see and learn out there, and surprisingly, still more of this old stuff running in places than people realize.
The rods were linked to an eccentric wheel which took power from the central power house. This turned the circular motion into a straight-line motion for the rods.
That is really cool. I used to work in the oil field offshore. most of our well were submersible, rod wells and top drive progressive cavity pumps. It's quiet compared to a platform which has gas compressors and all kinds of hydraulic lifting equipment.
Love your videos. When the well starts to slow down in production like this, does it ever make sense to lower the pump rate to match the amount of oil seeping into well?
Absolutely, Thats why this has a 6 inch or something like that stroke. On a very low volume well the well needs to be over pumped at least some so that if the well goes off for some reason it doesn't take days to catch back up.
Those things remind me of our travels around the States when I was between 10 and 13 years old. Now I'm 61, and I still have memories of huge areas just covered in those things. Super neat.
Must be nice to own a oil well. I own some property wish it had oil on it but far as I know there's nothing in Mississippi but poverty! Nice video enjoyed the content !
Always wondered why pumping rigs were called jacks, but it makes perfect sense when you finally see a real pump jack. It is exactly that, a pump actuated by a jack.
Great video. My ex-wife's grand-dad had pumped a 'jack-line' in Pennsylvania. He said his was circular with central power and lines radiating out like spokes to the jacks. He told me (I was the only family member who worked in the oilfields and wanted to listen) of a relief pumper in winter who'd gotten his coat caught up in the line and was killed. He warned me to never wear loose clothing around pumping units (we have pumping units in CA) and it's stayed with me 50+ years. Lou was a tough old roughneck who worked fields across the nation and I miss him...Men of iron and derricks of wood.
The cool part about setups like you describe is that each of the units balances the others. So one 8 or 10 HP motor can pump 6 or 10 wells as they are all in balance.
My dad had a bulk oil dealership when I was a kid and I spent a lot of time with him delivering gasoline, kerosene and fuel oil. We had above ground bulk tanks and I remember putting the pipe into the compartment hatch, opening the valve and watching the liquid run into a compartment and closing the valve when the liquid hit the right ring. I always wondered, "where did all of this stuff really come from"? The one line diagrams in the books leave the how it really works part out. Thank you for the continuing education, very informative and very cool!
thank you for sharing the information about these wells and also thank you for having the wisdom to know that we would enjoy just experiencing the sounds of the well pump.
I grew up in Ada and had no relation to the oil business except my dad had a Deep Rock gas station in the mid sixties. However, I do remember driving around the country and hearing the popper type gas engines running the wells. It is actually embarrassing how little I know about the oil business. I will be checking out your other videos. Thanks.
When I was living in Odessa TX in the 80s, I had a old guy show me a piece of machinery, it had a pully on one end and 90* a fitting on the other when you spun the pully it caused the fitting to move back and forth, he said it was to operate wells like you are showing today. When I was roustebouting in the 70s I remember seeing those pieces of pipe sticking up out of the grass in places and wondering what they were for
thanks for the introduction to something some of us from the midwest (michigan) never get to see or experience! i mean we have wells in michgan but nothing from the era that pushed/led this country in the modern world. that history and a familiy tie is awseome!
My home town in Canada had one of the first oil derrecks in North America(mineral rights established at Parsons Pond in 1894). Oil so rich that people literally would burn the fuel in their boat motors right out of the ground with no refining. It would probably require that engines be rebuild sooner than needed but if your burning free fuel, an engine rebuild every now and then is no big deal. The oil pipe is still there and you can use a capped pipe section on a rope and dip oil out of the open pipe. The dipped fuel looks and smells just like weakly mixed gasoline.
Absolutely awesome man thank you for breaking the seal and putting your hands in this crude. A lot heavier than I'd thought for WTI I'm assuming? Great stuff I love this topic and the history.
Zach I can't tell you how much I enjoy your channel. Everytime traveling through Oklahoma and Texas I would see the wells and wonder about them. You do a wonderful job explaining and have a great personality. Keep it up!!
Love it! Thanks I live in Ok and ride the back roads I see them all the time and I know that the men who worked them deserve allot of respect for there contribution to the the past GOD bless them!
Thank you for sharing this video. I love the oilfield. I represented the fifth generation of The Bovaird Supply Company. We were incorporated in 1871 and sold/manufactured equipment for over 120 years. I love the older pieces.