01 · At the well
A pumpjack lifts the oil
A beam pumping unit rocks its walking beam 8 times a minute. An electric motor turns a gearbox; the cranks and their counterweights drive the pitman arms, and the horsehead lifts a string of steel rods about 2.2 m on every stroke. The polished rod slides through the stuffing box on the wellhead, which seals the well.
Proportions of a common 86-inch-stroke unit: saddle bearing 6.0 m up, crank radius 0.94 m. The ground is cut away to show the well's casing strings, each drawn a little shorter than the one inside it.
02 · The bottom of the well
The pump: two valves and a plunger
About 1.5 km down, the rods work a plunger in a pump barrel. On the upstroke the travelling valve on the plunger shuts and lifts the oil above it, while the standing valve below opens and the barrel fills from the rock. On the downstroke the standing valve shuts and the plunger slides down through the oil with its valve open.
Drawn 10 times larger than the well above, with real API diameters: 5 1/2 in casing, 2 7/8 in tubing, a 1 3/4 in pump. Lengths are shortened so a whole stroke fits.
03 · Refinery
The furnace heats it, the tower splits it
The crude is heated to about 350 °C and fed into a tower about 40 m tall. Each product boils off at its own height: petrol near the top, then kerosene, then diesel. Of one barrel of 159 L, about 73 L comes off as petrol.
First pass: this scene has not had its detail pass yet.
04 · Tanker and station
The tanker fills the station, the pump serves the car
A road tanker carries about 36,000 L in 4 compartments. It unloads into the station's storage tank, about 50,000 L and usually buried. The dispenser pumps about 40 litres a minute.
First pass: this scene has not had its detail pass yet.
05 · The car
The pump sends it forward, the injectors spray it in
An electric pump in the 50 L tank pushes fuel through the line at about 3.5 bar. At idle, 800 rpm, the 4 injectors fire about 27 times a second between them, each pulse about 2.5 ms.
First pass: this scene has not had its detail pass yet.