Plenty of oilpatch innovations have come from the people who work out in the field. In these days of major research and development efforts, big budgets and complex tools, are such contributions history? Don't dismiss the lone innovator just yet.
Jimmy Tieben runs one of the better known farm and ranch stores in the United States, My-D Han-D, outside Dodge City, Kan. He deals in the gates, loading chutes, hog oilers, feeder panels and other equipment a working farm or ranch needs. What makes his operation stand out are the implements he designs and builds. The patented Tieben Self-Catch Head Gate, for example, is arguably the best on the market. The No Till Grain Drill which, pulled by a tractor, digs a furrow, inserts a seed and closes the ground is another hardworking device. The big model plants up to 10 rows in one pass.
Problems with the No Till Drill got Tieben into oil tools. Shanks, the hook-shaped, earth-splitting components of the No Till Drill, began shearing their mounting bolts in rocky ground. Tieben devised an oil/air-filled accumulator, much like a shock absorber. This he connected in place of the lower mounting bolt of the shank. The accumulator holds the shank firm and cutting through the earth, until it hits a rock. The blow compresses the gas in the accumulator, which allows the shank to pivot up and pass over the rock without breaking bolts.
Returning to Dodge City, Tieben recognized the motion of a walking beam out in the field had the same net result as his accumulator. At his shop he set up an A-frame, hung an accumulator from it and chained it to a block of concrete. When he pumped air into the accumulator, it lifted the block. More work produced the first Tieben Pumping Unit with the pressured accumulator playing the same role the counterweight has in the walking beam.
Tieben equipped a few stripper wells near Dodge City and began hauling his pump along to farm and ranch shows around the country. Jim Tripani of Oil Patch Enterprises spotted it at the Western Livestock Show in San Antonio in 1989. Within a short time Oil Patch had designed and built 16 larger capacity units and began renting them. Sales followed, first in Mexico, then later in Venezuela, Israel, Australia, Canada and Colombia. Now more than 240 are operating all over the world. Tripani is now with Weatherford Artificial Lift Systems, which holds an exclusive license to manufacture and market the Tieben pump, formally called the Tieben Nitrogen-Over-Hydraulic Pumping Unit. Current models have 60in., 120in. and 180in. strokes and lift maximum rod loads up to 40,000 lb.
"In a head-to-head comparison, this pump uses significantly less energy than a walking beam," Tripani said. "Other than the daily checking the pumper does, no routine maintenance is required. You can put a dozen of them on a flatbed that could only haul one walking beam. And when you get to the field, four men can set and install the pump in a half a day just using the truck crane."
The Tieben pump is experiencing a slower start in the United States with its high population of paid-for walking beam units and thriving used marketplace. But Tripani expects increasing oil prices will soon lead to US sales of the Tieben pump on its merits. Tieben too expects the pump to gain sales. And we'll probably see more from him. He already has 9 patents on agricultural implements; the Tieben pump is only his first patented oil tool.
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