for anyone who has ever driven through the southern United States or other oil-rich

areas you're likely familiar with the site of oil derricks these metal moving
hammer like structures work to extract oil from underground often in the middle of
nowhere all of this probably leaves you wondering how do they actually work and
what happens to the oil once it's taken from below ground called pump jacks 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 five
main parts the prime mover the crank the Samson posts the walking beam into the
sucker rod the Samson posts are those that make up the main a-frame of the
structure they function as the basic support allowing the pumping mechanisms to
work together atop the Samson posts it's the walking beam attached to a piece
called the horse head these parts together make up the major lever arm in the
structure responsible for most of the pumping these move up and down due to the
rotational movement from a smaller arm called the crank the crank usually has a
counterweight to balance out the forces on the oil derrick and it gets its power
from the prime mover usually through a gearbox the prime mover is simply a
complicated name for motor or engine this supplies the rotational energy to the
system that works through all of the subsequent parts to create the bobbing pumping
motion that these Derrick's are known for but all of that was a complicated preface
to how these massive pumps actually work to remove oil from underground attached to
the horse head is something called a sucker rod which moves up and down in the well
hole there are two stages of the pumping process the up stroke and the down stroke
simple enough on the upstroke the dirt pulls the rod up from the bottom of the well
to the top of its range of movement there's a valve attached to the bottom of the
sucker rod known as the writing valve and another at the bottom of the well known
as the standing valve on the upstroke the writing valve is closed in the standing
valve is opened allowing oil from the source to be drawn up into the well there on
the downstroke the writing valve opens in the standing valve closes putting the oil
from that stroke on the other side of the writing valve repeating this process over
and over again slowly pushes the oil up and out of the well at a rate determined by
the pump speed size of stroke and well diameter this functionality works similarly
to how most pumps work using what would traditionally be called a check valve this
valve functions identically to how the valves in the oil derrick work allowing flow
of a fluid in one direction but not the other as the oil horse operates the oil is
forced out of the reservoir in the valves don't allow it to flow in the other
direction their size is usually directly correlated to how deep an oil well might
be the larger the oil horse the deeper the oil reserve this relation is simply
because bringing oil up from deeper depths requires a significantly larger amount
of effort these Derrick's generally pump anywhere from one point five to ten
gallons of oil per stroke the liquid extracted is usually a mixture of crude oil
and water that then needs to be separated and refined as for what happens to the
oil once it is pumped there are two main options depending upon location some
Derrick's will fill a large container with the oil that is then trucked away at
certain intervals or the oil is directly pumped to a central holding station
through a pipeline while renewable energies may be making a strong play for
powering the world oil will likely be here to stay for quite some time all this
means that oil horses across the country will keep on bobbing bringing up oil from
deep beneath the surface and now when you drive past them on the road you can
understand that these seemingly complex machines are actually just large simple
pumps working to help your car keep on moving thanks for watching if you want to
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