Pumpjack

A pumpjack is the overground drive for a reciprocating piston pump in an oil well. It is used to mechanically lift liquid out of the well if there is not enough bottom hole pressure for the liquid to flow all the way to the surface. The arrangement is often used for onshore wells. Pumpjacks are common in oil-rich areas. Depending on the size of the pump, it generally produces of liquid at each stroke. Often this is an emulsion of crude oil and water. Pump size is also determined by the depth and weight of the oil to remove, with deeper extraction requiring more power to move the increased weight of the discharge column (discharge head). A beam-type pumpjack converts the rotary motion of the motor to the vertical reciprocating motion necessary to drive the polished-rod and accompanying sucker rod and column (fluid) load. The engineering term for this type of mechanism is a walking beam. It was often employed in stationary and marine steam engine designs in the 18th and 19th centuries. A pumpjack is also called a beam pump, walking beam pump, horsehead pump, nodding donkey pump (donkey pumper), rocking horse pump, grasshopper pump, sucker rod pump, dinosaur pump, Big Texan pump, thirsty bird pump, hobby horse, or just pumping unit. In the early days, pumpjacks worked by rod lines running horizontally above the ground to a wheel on a rotating eccentric in a mechanism known as a central power. The central power, which might operate a dozen or more pumpjacks, would be powered by a steam or internal combustion engine or by an electric motor. Among the advantages of this scheme was only having one prime mover to power all the pumpjacks rather than individual motors for each. However, among the many difficulties was maintaining system balance as individual well loads changed. Modern pumpjacks are powered by a prime mover. This is commonly an electric motor, but internal combustion engines are used in isolated locations without access to electricity, or, in the cases of water pumpjacks, where three-phase power is not available (while single phase motors exist at least up to , providing power to single-phase motors above can cause powerline problems, and many pumps require more than 10 horsepower).