r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/ShallowAstronaut • 10d ago
Video A scaled-down model demonstrating the process of oil extraction from onshore fields
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u/LordofAllReddit 10d ago
What is this, an oil pump for ants?
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u/Tipi_Tais_Sa_Da_Tay 10d ago
The oil pump has to be at least….. three times bigger than this!
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u/LazyLizzy 9d ago
He's right you know.
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u/Icanthearforshit 9d ago
ARE YOU NOT AWARE THAT I GET FARTY AND BLOATED WITH A FOAMY LATTE?!
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u/SacrificialPigeon 10d ago
It's not small, it's just really far away and the man behind it is a Giant.
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u/3LegedNinja 9d ago
The proprietary stuff I imagine is basically a one way check valve.
Same thing found on equipment in a closed loop multi pump hydraulic set up.
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u/Liquidust256 9d ago
He can’t say it’s propriatory
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u/deathonater 9d ago
It's propriatory!? Whuuuut!?
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u/DiExMachina 9d ago
Their model looks like it's using a double ball check valve piston. Used in paint sprayers as well(Graco). If that is truly just a scaled down version and not just a model(que Monty Python), it's a relatively simple technology.
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u/fromks 9d ago
Usually a ball check on the traveling valve, and a ball check on the standing valve.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucker_rod
https://web.mit.edu/2.972/www/reports/sucker_rod_pump/sucker_rod_pump.html
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u/Monksdrunk 9d ago
I don't know what it is about Graco but every time i have to say it i just get uncomfortable. Graaa co? Gray co? Like truck lights Grote.. just bugs the shit out of me
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u/DiExMachina 9d ago
Started by the Gray brothers. Gray Company. Graco. Not related to the baby stroller company.
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u/Revised_Copy-NFS 9d ago
That makes sense.
What they are doing in the model with the ball valve/pump is a good demonstration.
I do wonder about the bottom bit. It's interesting.
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u/murkytransmission 10d ago
It’s one way to extract. Pump jacks are typically only brought in once the pressures are too low to bring the minerals to the surface. You can either rework the well and frac to increase pressures, or put one of these in there to get the most possible of that milkshake.
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u/smartalco 9d ago
In my area of the US there are almost none that have enough pressure to rise to the surface by themselves, they’re all pumped.
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u/hodd01 9d ago
well actually... fracking a well only increases permeability. To increase pressure you would need to do a water flood or CO2 flood. Additionally reworking a well is a catch up phrase but typically is done to fix a mechanical issue such as a stuck pump down hole or plug the current reservoir and come up hole in perforate a new zone up-hole.
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u/murkytransmission 9d ago
Yep. I’d already written enough without going into all the phases and what each stage involves. And I’m not sure what a catch up phrase is, but the phrase “reworking a well” was generally used any time the well is shut in to perform downhole operations. At least that’s the term we used in the Permian, Delaware, Haynesville, Bakken, Eagleford, and Anadarko basins. But it could be different elsewhere. Those areas are the only places I’ve worked.
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u/jstnryan 10d ago
It’s so secret they can’t even use the correct pronunciation of proprietary.
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u/seitansaves 10d ago
good ol' down home edjamacation
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u/Hellkyte 10d ago
The irony being that there's likely some extremely advanced engineering here. O&G industry is weird like that. You will find some serious bumpkin sounding good ol boys that are very hardcore engineers
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u/BoiFrosty 9d ago
The amount of genius engineers I've talked to with super thick Texan or Louisiana accents is staggering.
Have you ever had a 3 AM phone call from a guy that sounds like boomhauer wanting to know why his oil well shut in? I have. It's a surreal experience.
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u/xenelef290 9d ago
"Tell you what man, dang ol' differential topology, man, talkin' 'bout them dang ol' manifolds, man, smooth structures all connectin' like dang ol' Poincaré conjecture, man. You take that dang ol' n-dimensional sphere, man, homeomorphic to that standard n-sphere, man, only got one dang ol' diffeomorphism class up to isotopy, man."
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u/MisterMcZesty 9d ago
I tell ya what, that well done shut in ’round 3AM, prolly ‘cause of one of them automatic safety dealies, man, like that dang ol’ pressure sensor tripped or sump’n, y’know? Gotta keep that well from goin’ all wild, shootin’ oil ever’where, man. Could be a low pressure shut-in, high pressure, maybe a dang ol’ ESD system kicked in, man, gotta check that SCADA readout, see what’s what, y’know?
Best bet, get a tech out there, man, put some eyeballs on it, check them valves, them pumps, make sure ain’t nothin’ stuck or gummed up, man. ‘Cause I tell ya what, could just be a lil’ ol’ glitch, but could be somethin’ serious, man, like sand cuttin’ up your flowline or gas lockin’ up the pump, y’know what I’m sayin’?
Shoot, you want me to send somebody out, man, just gimme that go-ahead, we get ‘er done lickety-split, man.
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u/cant_pass_CAPTCHA 9d ago
Dang man jus tryna work that dang ole well here make a THUNK THUNK man ya know ain't sound right
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u/PigglyWigglyDeluxe 9d ago
“You can’t talk your way out of this one” is my favorite joke in KotH ever lol
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u/urahozer 9d ago
Sounding doesn't quite cut it.
Mining along with O&G contains some of the most bafflingly dumb individuals who possess, what can only be described as divine ability, to design and build resource extraction methods.
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u/xenelef290 9d ago
A PhD engineer working at NASA with the thickest Alabama accent I have ever heard.
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u/seitansaves 10d ago
agreed. that's one of the few things I like about the south. they sound stupid but excel at their specific skills
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u/3LegedNinja 9d ago
Takes all kinds to make the world go around.
I do a lot of bids and negotiations. I have an accent that is as thick as peanut butter.
You can always tell when someone is underestimating you.
9/10 times I leave with the deal I wanted.
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u/ReallyNowFellas 9d ago
Maybe ask yourself why you think they sound stupid. No different than assuming someone who speaks AAVE is stupid; they're both just prejudice.
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u/_idiot_kid_ 9d ago
Yeah this is why my parents basically put on an accent for my whole childhood because they were worried if I sounded southern people would assume I was stupid and not take me seriously. They were absolutely justified in that. It's fucked up.
I don't blame y'all for having these biases but I am absolutely judging if you're not recognizing it and putting in conscious effort to counter it. Use logic.
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u/ozzimark 9d ago
I mean, there's lot of oil fields outside of the south... But this guy? Definitely south.
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u/Hellkyte 9d ago
I mean sometimes they sound stupid and are stupid.
You just never know
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u/Majestic_Jizz_Wizard 9d ago
I'd still choose the brain surgeon that doesn't say things like "terlet."
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u/BoiFrosty 9d ago
I work in Texas oil fields, I regularly have conversations with genuine expert oil field supervisors, engineers, and technicians that sound like Boomhauer from King of the Hill.
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u/sick_of-it-all 10d ago
It sounds like two King of the Hill characters talking to each other. "Say man, what you talkin' 'bout that dang ole pro-pryterry? "
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u/Zealousideal-Fix9464 9d ago
So secret they have to gatekeep 150 year old technology.
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u/Unclehol 9d ago
And it's got some specialized internal stuff in it that you can't see.
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u/DennisDEX 10d ago
Humanity's biggest achievement was turning Rotary motion into lateral motion and vice versa
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u/FixedLoad 9d ago
I'd have gone with hot pockets. But sure. This is important too... I guess...
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u/jipijipijipi 9d ago
You joke but I remember a nationwide poll in France back in 1999 that asked people what was the invention of the millennium according to them. And Nutella came first place over a long list of… every major invention, discovery and technological advances ever.
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u/FixedLoad 9d ago
I think i recall hearing that back in the day. I graduated in 99. I remember thinking, wtf is Nutella?
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u/TheGhostofWoodyAllen 9d ago
Nutella
It's a hazelnut chocolate spread.
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u/FixedLoad 9d ago
I know what it is now. In 1999, it hadn't yet reached my corner of the rust belt.
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u/_le_slap 9d ago
If you had asked me back then I woulda said queso. I lived off that shit
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u/One_pop_each 9d ago
gears, man. Such an insane concept that is so simple and old, that the greeks used it to track the stars. Were used in old windmills to make flower, then to electricity, in $100K watches to tell time, and to power a jet engine on an airbus.
Underrated achievement not many people think about.
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u/theJoosty1 9d ago
and in second place there's using steam to turn something
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u/kMaestro64 9d ago
I found nuclear energy to be quite underwhelming (and a lot less "intimidating") when I realised that it literally boils down to...Core heats up water to steam...steam turns something...same for geothermal power
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u/BulbusDumbledork 9d ago
the science and engineering behind nuclear power plants is still incredible even if it's just used to boil water. but it should definitely be less threatening, since the dangers are vastly oversensationalised and are far less impactful than the effects of fossil fuels. it's a bit like how people are scared to fly in planes because of a few big-ticket crashes but don't balk at driving cars which result in thousands of lethal accidents every day
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u/TINY-jstr 9d ago
What's the worth of a model that hides the actual mechanics it's trying to model?
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u/heres-another-user 9d ago
To show off to potential investors that your design actually works without showing them exactly how.
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u/Deuce232 9d ago
It's a one way valve. Like it has been for fully a hundred years.
He might not be able to say more than that if something about their design is proprietary, but the basic way it functions is far from a secret.
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u/PM_me_the_bootyhole 9d ago
As someone who has spent a lot of time in trade show booths. It’s PROPRYITORY because he has no idea how it works.
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u/Ok-Review8720 10d ago
I'm using the "proprietary" excuse next time I get asked a question I don't know the answer to.
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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 9d ago
I guarantee you that dude knows how every single part of their pumps work.
He couldn’t even bring himself to say, “yeah, that’s how it works,” without a caveat because technically there is more to it.
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u/Big_Mudd 9d ago
I'm also copying how when the guy said "that's pretty cool man" he just replied "yup" instead of saying thanks like it's self-evident.
So confident.
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u/Sad_Week8157 10d ago
Proprietory? That’s not even a word.
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u/Metals4J 9d ago
What if we all think it’s funny because he’s mispronouncing it, but it’s actually a word used internally within their company that means “highly dangerous to human life” or something.
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u/cyclic72 9d ago
Then he wouldn’t use the word to justify his silence to people outside the community as they wouldn’t know the meaning.
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u/FupaFerb 10d ago
Proprietary is a fancy word for “I do not know but probably batteries.”
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u/antwan_benjamin 9d ago
Whats funny to me is like...why'd you even bring it up then? Obviously I'm going to ask about it since you mentioned it. Thats the normal way to engage in polite conversation. You just really wanted to tell me that you can't tell me.
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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 9d ago
Nah, engineers and scientists have trouble saying incomplete truths even if it’s unnecessary.
The guy just can’t bring himself to say, “yes, that’s how it works” because technically there’s more to it, but they don’t show it because it’s proprietary.
It’s why you only ever bring one engineer to a meeting, ideally the best communicator. Otherwise they keep pointing out details the other omitted.
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u/Shapoopi_1892 9d ago
Since when is a one way ball float valve proprietary?
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u/Substantial-Sea-3672 9d ago
Presumably the proprietary parts aren’t shown.
And most proprietary stuff in engineering isn’t like alien technology - it’s common technology used in clever ways.
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u/triumph_aussie 9d ago
Let me help, there’s a check valve on top of a pump at the bottom of a rod string. The check valve allows fluids to enter when the pump moves down and holds it inside the tubing (pipe) when the pump moves up.
This simple up and down movement is repeated hundreds & hundred of times a day and eventually gets the fluid to the surface and into a tank.
There are many ways to do this each with their pros and cons. These models a very useful teaching tools to demonstrate what’s happening a mile below the ground.
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u/r_Coolspot 9d ago
In the UK, this type of pump is called a nodding donkey. Weirdly not named because of its likeness to the animal, but after it's inventor Sir Calvin Donkey, who was known for agreeing vigorously to anything and everything.
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u/Three_Licks 10d ago
Is "proprietory" anything like "proprietary"?
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u/AThrowawayProbrably 9d ago
He can’t remember all the details of the presentation but vaguely the word “proprietary”.
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u/Fairycharmd 9d ago
what the actual fuck is proprietory? There’s a fucking a in that sentence. Proprietary. I know this is part of the dumb down of America but Jesus Christ. How do you say that so confidently and be so fucking wrong about it
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u/Final_Wheel_7486 8d ago
I firmly believe that this is the greatest conversation of all time.
It's so memeable.
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u/Mean_Rule9823 10d ago
Proprietary...its a one way valve and physics
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u/Shuber-Fuber 9d ago
One way valve is easy.
One way valve that can open and close hundreds of times a day through thick fluid and potentially gritty fluid and withstand tens of thousands of pounds of oil against it without failing for months is proprietary.
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u/Pirat_fred 9d ago
Interesting how much bubbles there are, I imagine that they take quite a toll on the equipment, like bubbles on a ship screw.
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u/CatCrateGames 9d ago
Thanks God it's a scale down model. A real-size model would be hard to put on that place
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u/LoudMusic Interested 9d ago
It's two one way valves and a telescoping pipe.
Oh, and some propriatory stuff.
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u/TheBunnyDemon 9d ago
"Here's how an oil pump works."
Oh, neat. So, how DOES this work?
"I can't tell you that."
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u/Skiptree 9d ago
"It's propriatory enfurmashun" I don't know why him mentioning it only to say "can't tell it's a secret" bothered me so much, but it did.
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u/PraveenInPublic 10d ago
I now want to know how the drilling is done too.