Electricity in Oil Fields - Use of Electricity in the Mid-Continent Field (with Discussion)

Only general treatment of a subject of such scope can be given in a short paper, therefore, except in a few instances, statistics and descriptions of specific installations are omitted. The earlier applications of electricity to the production of petroleum in the Mid-Continent field were widely separated chonologically, each holding a special interest, and each contributing greatly to the present development. Electric Pumping One of the first installations of electric pumping was on a lease near Jenks, Okla., in the Arkansas River bed, where a difficult problem was solved by the use of motors. The Arkansas River had frequent flood periods which interfered seriously with the use of jacks and pull rods. Small piers were built with old casing used as piling, and upon these were set small jacks driven by 3-hp. squirrel-cage motors. The starting switches were located on a bank and the power was furnished by a small generator, which was driven by an oil country gas engine. This installation was made in 1913 and is, I believe, still in satisfactory operation. In 1914, the Cushing field came in and the Hill Oil & Gas Co. electrified its Shamrock property, using eight-pole Star Delta motors, rated at 10 to 30 hp. and belted through countershafts to the band wheel. Power was furnished by a small generating plant consisting of two 135-kw. machines, gas-engine driven. Considerable difficulty was experienced in the early operation of this station because of low voltage. It is characteristic of small alternating-current generators that voltage regulation will be poor with widely fluctuating loads. This field had three producing sands, and a number of wells were redrilled with the motors, and this, together with a great deal of swabbing, was responsible for the bad load conditions. However, when the wells had settled down to steady operation, the electric equipment functioned satisfactorily, and continued in use as installed until a few years ago when the present owners contracted for service from a central-station company and shut