I love 'em. When I was little, I called them dinosaurs. Very relaxing to watch them. In the quiet evenings in the desert, when my dad stopped for gas they echoed across the night.
My parents and I went on a trip out West when I was 9 years old. These things fascinated me then and still do. They used to call them "oil birds". There's something hypnotic about them. I could watch these all day.
I saw my first one when I was around eight years old and I became hooked. I still am! I don't know..., every time I see them it's like..., it's like the giants of Easter Island come to life.
Really? I don't hate them at all. I searched just to watch them go. I find them calming and fascinating. As a kid I'd watch them out the car windows on long trips.
I've always loved these. Especially with the little noise. I wish I could just have a prop version in my yard! Haha it's just so relaxing to watch and cute.
I'm an artist. And from my point of view..., these oil rigs are fantastic! Austere and relentless. What an awesome painting this could be. You got the heat waves, ten or more of these metal giants in the foreground..., all that's missing is a B-52 bomber in the distance just leaving the ground on takeoff. Awesome!
I’m western Oklahoma we have ridden them out here, at least you can see quite a way when on top to see if the pumper is coming and get off location before he gets there
yeah i think in part because they're associated in the media with the 'evils of capitalism' etc... also they have a kind of animal like appearance just enough to be creepy.. like a bird or dinosaur of some kind.
@@illuminate4622 ...and the cobalt from Congolese slave labor They're all bad, oil is just a lot more fun to watch getting created in fields like these which don't poison water supplies and kill natives - yes I'm talking about Shell, they actually do that
My great grandma used to have a ranch out in the pandhandle. Nothing but wilderness for miles around, but these pumpjacks were scattered around the place. One was directly across the road from the house she lived in. I have wonderful memories of that place, walking around and hearing these.
great. just one small complaint. it's shame there is no sound of all those pumpjacks, especially group from 4:00 minute. It's a bit disappointment, that I hear only first pumpjack through whole video of different pumpjacks with constructions and speed.
This sounds straight out of a horror movie I grew up around these things, you'd see fields with them, they reminded me of dead metal horses in the field
Love the back country and love the pump jacks. We called them donkeys. Raised my family in Ojai. Took 33 over the mountains to Bakersfield many, many times. I don't think people realize how much oil there is in California. Those dinosaurs did a good job of leaving their magic legacy there.
Didn't they just! People often seem surprised California has any oil at all… (just make them drive down Highway 33 to Taft :-)). Growing up in Australia, we called them "nodding donkeys".
Ever since I was a kid and someone told me what they were I've always wondered about the details. These are for mature oil fields where it's no longer bubbling up under pressure but has to be pumped. Since it takes energy and moola to operate these things I always wondered where the break-even point was reached--both in terms of pumping depth and operating expenses. I noticed the crumbling concrete footings and rusting fixtures on some of those beasts and figure some of them must be ancient.
Yes, I live on a relatively unexploited natural gas field and I'm trying so hard to find one but they're nowhere because it's impractical to pump it if it just comes out by itself
It's funny because us kids (back in the 60's and 70's) thought they looked like giant ants working. To me, they still look like that! I've got a good imagination. 😁
I miss that sound, also! Even more ... the sound when the big pumps were powered with internal combustion engines: roryrrrrERRRRRRR chug chug chug chug chug chg roryrrrr ERRRRRRRRR chug chug chug chug .... haven't heard that in a longggg time...
I remember seeing these all over ohio pennsylvania west virginia. Then I moved out west I saw them all over california. I live in indiana and they are here too
People sound like we are all going to need one of these in our back yard, but things in the Middle-East are not so bad that the price at the pump should jump.
I noticed there were a lot of Lufkin Industry pumps in your video. I knew we made a lot of pumping units but I didn't think they were that prominent. I had figured there were more companies making them than the few I did see :\
I love pillow shots like this. As a video response I want to make a compilation in due time of mechanical objects similar to this one. My favourites are the whirring of telephone lines, the sound of rainfall on corrugated steel, the sound of crackling bonfire (technically this may be classified as machinery I suppose), the sound of a bus engine humming, and old fashioned movie projectors. Suggestions are welcome.
I guess there are times and places where these things are turned on and off or even abandoned and later restored according to oil price fluctuations? Wiki says the pumps are powered every which way imaginable. From being plugged into the electrical grid to diesel, propane or even using the "casing gas" coming out of the well.
They're not beautiful; they're weapons of mass destruction. But I noticed plenty of them off State Route 10 in Utah, driving between Price and Huntington.
The soundtrack is from the first pumpjack that appears in the video. It was still clanking away eighteen months later, but it stopped running years ago now...
