This is only on topic because we use petroleum products in the
operation of our motorcycles. If you are not interested in the history
of the domestic oil field and related explanations, go to the next
post. This is a long one.
Jim
Post by Mike W.On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 15:03:14 GMT, Wudsracer
Post by WudsracerMostly, I worked derricks in the oil field service crews, and (after
someone caught me laying down to take a dump, thus proving that I was
lazy enough to be a "pumper") later as a pumper, or caretaker of
producing stripper wells (secondary production wells of less than 10
barrels of oil per day yield).
http://www.independentwellservicing.com/photo/photo.php?file=/New_Trucks/rig_1/_res/res_P1010016.JPG
this rig has a 94' mast similar to the first rig on which I worked.
I worked on the two suspended platforms up on the mast. The rig I
worked on had the lower platform (tubing rack/tubing board) at 50 feet
up and the upper platform (rod hanger/rod board) at 70 feet up.
Actually, as my father was a well service contractor, I started
working around the older style stationary 112' standard derricks at an
early age (on weekends), and was working the "tubing board" at the age
of 13, and the "rod board" at the age of 15. (OSHA regulations for age
don't always apply to family members. )
Most of the old standard stationary derricks are now a thing of the
past, as it is easier to control safety aspects of equipment with the
newer style mobile service rigs.
This photo show a pulling unit with rods hanging from and the tubing
stacked in the mast during a service job.
http://www.accellwellservice.com/rig6.html
This presentation shows a very modern well service rig in action,
including the derrick hand doing his thing for a bit.
http://www.savannaenergy.com/corpinfo/savdvd/greatplains.asp
(with more information than most want to know.)
Jim... that was *fascinating*. One question... so you go up on that
platform. What the hell do you do up there? What is all this gear being
used to do? It doesn't seem like it's the drilling gear. It seems like it's
some kind of service gear.
As the laying down, don't forget that time I moved my leg at the petting
zoo and got "gored by the zebu" at the state fair... and the dude running
the petting zoo fame running up and said "Hey mister... don't say 'gored'.
That thing doesn't even stand up to take a shit".
Mike
Start of new part:
Mike,
I see that you understand the joke about how one becomes a pumper.
That is an old joke fostered by jealous pulling/service rig crew
personnel.
<preamble to a ramble>
I actually started working in the oil field as early as age 6, washing
tools with condensate/drip gasoline while the crew worked servicing a
well. At the age of 7, I started "tailing rods". (grabbing the rods to
be laid onto ties, instead of hanging them in the derrick, and running
the length of the rod to keep it off the ground and guiding it onto
the rack set up for that purpose.
Other than that, I paid for all my "teenage motorcycles" by painting
oil storage/stock tanks (by hand with a brush) and clearing right of
ways (with a sling blade and kaiser blade). At the age of 10, in the
6th grade, after school, I would ride my Cushman out to the oil field
and work in the afternoons and on Saturdays.
As I got older and larger, I started working on the pulling crew on
Saturdays, when they pulled/serviced wells that belonged to the
family. (Stripper wells that produced oil for which we were paid
$3.50 per 42 gallon barrel.) Dad would run the machine, I would
wrench rods, and an older "pick-up hand" would work derricks.
At the age of thirteen, I was still to small to wrench pipe with a
pair of chain tongs, but stout enough to handle the pipe in the
derrick; so dad would have me wrench the rods and then climb the
derrick to work the tubing board while he and the extra hand would
wrench the pipe by hand, with chain tongs and a cheater pipe. (Dad
also running the rig.)
At the age of 15, I worked my first rod board. After that, most of
my rig work was up in the derricks, since a lot of workers were scared
of heights. I loved being up there.
I still remember that first day. The derrick was a standard
stationary angle iron derrick, and an old one at that. Instead of a
welded together pipe and expanded metal platform to work from, it had
a rough cut 2x12 to stand on while working up there. I climbed up the
70 feet to the rod board, and to my dismay, saw a crack running the
length of the rod board.
I yelled down to Dad,"Dad, There's a crack running the length of this
2x12!"
He yelled back up," That's why you have that safety harness on. Don't
forget to tie it to the derrick leg.!"
"OK, Dad", and I crawled out on the board and attached the safety
harness's chain to the derrick leg. After a while, I was so busy
working that I forgot to be scared.... and, the board didn't break.
If you have you got a few more minutes, I'll bend your ears a bit.
First, a word of explanation.
The type of wells that I worked with on a service rig, are pumping
wells, with the easily recognized pumping unit
Loading Image...
lifting the fluid by means of:
1. tubing (pipe) hanging from the casing head down into the well bore,
with a check valve on bottom.
2. "sucker rods" hang from the pumping unit down into the tubing. At
the bottom of the string of rods, there is a pump/"plunger" that seals
to the inside of the bottom of the pipe, in a special precision bore
joint of pipe called a "working barrel". When the rods lift up, they
carry a volume of fluid corresponding to the inside bore of the
working barrel. This is lifted the length of the pumping unit's
stroke.
When the pumping unit lowers the string of rods, a check
valve/standing valve (alloy steel ball and alloy ring "seat") in the
bottom of the working barrel closes. The ball and seat at the bottom
of the traveling valve (the plunger at the bottom of the string of
rods) opens and lets the well's fluid, that is now trapped in the
working barrel, inside the hollow plunger and through another ball and
seat check valve, leaving the fluid above the plunger, which lifts it
up the tubing on the pumping unit's upstroke. As it lifts the fluid
above the plunger, the pressure from the column of fluid in the well
bore opens the ball and seat in the standing valve and floods the area
in the working barrel below the traveling valve. Repeat the process
24 hours per day and 7 days per week. You now know how the pumping
oil well works.
This is the same basic method of lifting fluids out of a well bore
ever since windmills were used.
The wells that I worked/work on are from 1,500 to 5,000 feet deep
(about 2,500' is the average), with a great deal of pressure involved
down hole. As a result of friction and stress, sometimes the sucker
rods break or wear out, the pipe will get a hole in it, and the down
hole pumping equipment will need replacing/servicing. The current fee
for a well service rig and crew runs about $140 to $200 per hour, with
a 4 hour minimum. When my dad was in business servicing wells (they
sold the pulling equipment around 1967), the going rate was about $18
per hour, no minimum. Working under a standard derrick, they would
complete 4 rod jobs or 2 tubing jobs in the average day.
When wells are serviced, first the sucker rods and traveling valve
are pulled out of the hole, and hung in the derrick. Then the tubing
is pulled out of the hole and stacked back (leaned into the side) of
the derrick. On smaller rigs, the rods are pulled in doubles (25' long
each x two), and the pipe is pulled in singles (approximately 30'
long). On larger rigs, the rods are pulled in triples and the pipe is
pulled in doubles.
In the derrick of the service rig:
On the top platform/rod board, I transferred the rods from the
machine's rod elevator to a small swiveling rod holding tool on a
block and line and, after the rod was unscrewed, I transferred the rod
to a "rod hanger", where it stayed until the equipment was put back
into the well. Then, I lifted the rods and suspended them while they
were screwed back together, and then transferred them back to the
rig's pulley and rod elevator.
On the lower platform/tubing board, after the pipe was unscrewed and
set at a designated spot on the ground, I would unlatch the elevators
as the block traveled down, and guide/lean the now free stands of
pipe against the side of the tubing board. Going back into the hole, I
would lean the pipe back out over the hole and latch the pipe
elevators around the pipe as the rig operator raised the block and
tubing elevator past me.
There was a good bit more involved in what I did up there, but this is
the "short version", so the given explanation will have to suffice for
now.
I will say one more thing, without prompting: The "floor crew" didn't
like it when the derrick hand takes a piss from 70 feet up. <G>
The class pumping units of the industry are built in Lufkin, Texas, by
Lufkin Industries. Some of the pumping units that I look after have
been in continuous service for over 50 years.
Here's more on different styles of pumping units:
http://www.lufkin.com/oilfield/index.html
Smackover's oil field has been in production since 1922, and is now
mostly stripper wells. In 1925 Smackover had the world's largest known
reserve of crude oil, with over 77,000,000 barrels of oil produced in
Smackover during that year.
Due to inefficient production and drilling techniques, much of the
crude was left in the reservoirs underground, as the escaping gas from
the freshly tapped pockets underground produced huge storybook gushers
that sprayed oil twice the height of the drilling derricks, and caused
craters and fires.
One of these is close to where I live & work. When the well quit
blowing out and the fire was extinguished several weeks later, it left
a hole some 100 feet deep and 200 yards across.
However, because of those same inefficient techniques, the stripper
wells (less than 10 bpd each) will probably keep producing for a long
time. As long as the price of crude stays in the $45-$50 range, those
2 barrel per day (bpd) wells will continue to be produced.
Side note,: If anyone doesn't like the price of crude, gasoline, and
heating oil, blame the futures market. Those "profit mongers" and
their speculation on the future price of crude and crude products
caused the high prices and are keeping them artificially high. The
major oil companies are making a lot of profit right now, but they do
not set the price. That is set by the stock/futures market. They are
the same people who kept the price of oil so low for the last twenty
years that millions of jobs were lost and over a million bpd of
domestic production was capped/plugged because it was a money losing
endeavor to try to produce it.
footnotes:
1. from here: http://www.scsc.k12.ar.us/BorneC/gulf.htm
" In 1922, in Norphlet, Arkansas where the largest oil field in
Arkansas was located, the Smackover field, a well exploded and blew
drilling equipment and the derrick high into the air. Balls of red
sand was thrown a mile in all directions with the gas column igniting
through the force of the eruption. The crater produced quickly grew
rapidly consuming everything nearby including the drilling rig,
boiler, and a nearby cemetery, producing a crater that was an acre
wide and 400 feet deep. At the bottom of the crater, escaping gas
bubbled through a pool of oil and water for many weeks."
2. from here: (a story about H.L. Hunt and Murphy Oil)
http://www.nwarktimes.com/story_print.php?paper=adg&Travel=section&storyid=123017
"In May 1922, the focus of ArkansasÂ’ oil boom shifted about nine miles
north from the El Dorado area to the timber hamlet of Norphlet. On May
14, Murphy Well No. 1 gushed into life, producing huge amounts of
natural gas, and becoming the discovery well in the Smackover Field.
This well was historic for two reasons. Not only did it open a vast
new field for development, it created a vast crater that swallowed up
drilling rigs like mere appetizers. The well blew in with such
pressure that the derrick was destroyed and the crew had to run for
their lives. Soon ground around the well began to cave in, and a
crater formed that grew steadily. About two days after the well blew
in, it caught fire and flames shot 300 feet into the air. By the time
it stopped growing and the flames died, the crater stretched 450 feet
across and was more than 50 feet deep."
3. from here:
http://peace.saumag.edu/swark/articles/ahq/union_co/oildiscovery/union_oil_photo/union-oil-photo7.html
photos of the crater throwing mud into the air, and a huge column of
gas blowing freely into the air.
4. from here:
http://peace.saumag.edu/swark/articles/ahq/union_co/oildiscovery/union_oil_photo/union-oil-photo8.html
and here:
http://peace.saumag.edu/swark/articles/ahq/union_co/oildiscovery/union_oil_photo/union-oil-photo9.html
photos of the Norphlet Crater from 70 years ago.
5. from here:
Loading Image...
A photo of this area's discovery well near El Dorado, AR.
If you look through the above series of photos, you can get a good
idea of conditions at the time of the Smackover Oil Boom. (Both Deb
and I were products of people who moved here during the oil boom.)
Including those living in the "tent city", there were over 50,000
people who were here for a couple of years. Lawlessness was a fact of
life, with two to three murders per night.
6. link to a locally located museum, the Arkansas Museum of Natural
Resources: http://www.amnr.org/
Finally, more than almost anyone would want to know about the
formation of oil bearing deposits in the Gulf Coast Region:
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/regulate/environ/nepa/EPA/Vol.%201/Appendices.pdf
Jim Cook
Smackover Racing
Gas Gas DE300
Team LAGNAF
www.smackovermotorsports.com
