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Built by the team behind OpsFlo — field service & billing software for oilfield service companies. Capture tickets at the wellsite and bill in days, not weeks.
How wells produce over their lifetime — natural flow, the artificial-lift methods that keep them going, recovery stages, and how output declines over time.
Once a well is completed it enters production, flowing oil, gas and water to the surface for years or decades. Early on, natural reservoir pressure may drive the flow; as that pressure falls, operators add artificial lift — pumpjacks, submersible pumps, gas lift — and eventually enhanced recovery methods to keep the oil moving.
This guide covers every lift method, the primary/secondary/tertiary recovery stages, and how decline curves predict a well's future.
Why most wells need help to flow.
Read →The iconic nodding donkey, explained.
Read →Beam pumping in detail.
Read →High-volume downhole pumping.
Read →Lightening the fluid column with gas.
Read →For heavy, sandy crude.
Read →ESP vs rod pump vs gas lift.
Read →Waterflood, EOR and more.
Read →Forecasting a well's output.
Read →
Built by the team behind OpsFlo — field service & billing software for oilfield service companies. Capture tickets at the wellsite and bill in days, not weeks.
Over 60% of wells worldwide use artificial lift, and around 90% need it eventually. As natural reservoir pressure declines, it can no longer push fluids to surface, so a pump or gas-lift system provides the energy to keep the well producing.
A pumpjack is a surface beam unit that rocks up and down, driving a string of sucker rods that operate a positive-displacement pump deep in the well. Each stroke lifts a volume of oil up the tubing to surface.
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR), or tertiary recovery, uses CO2 injection, steam, or chemicals to recover oil that primary and secondary methods leave behind, potentially raising total recovery to 30–60% of the oil in place.