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Portable Pulling Rig

Drilling Techniques

Map Location

Latitude: 42° 46' 50.912" N
Longitude: 82° 6' 38.387" W

Date

1930s
  • A photo of a small drilling rig in a field. There are four wires extending from the top of the rig down to the ground. Three men are looking at the rig and there are pieces of casing laying on the ground in front of it. A Portable Pulling Rig in Petrolia
  • A photo of a man with his hands in a bucket, in front of a pulling rig that has three visible posts and wires running from it to the vehicle carrying it. A Portable Pulling Rig in Petrolia
  • A photo of a portable pulling rig set up in a grassy field, pulled by a red tractor. It has a tall beam with a shorter beam running horizontally, like a cross. A man leans on a fence behind it. A modern portable pulling rig carrying out repairs on a well. The rig is moved to where it is needed by a tractor and powered by a diesel engine on board.
  • A photo of a modern portable pulling rig, with cables extending down to the pump. It has a tall beam with a shorter one running horizontally, like a cross. There are metal poles lying on wooden saw horses in front of the rig. A modern portable pulling rig.
  • An ad for a portable pulling machine, showing the machine set up at the top and folded up at the bottom so it could be hauled by horses. Advertisement for a portable pulling machine. Source: Oil Well Supply Co. General Catalogue No. 29, 1911.

Portable pulling rigs began to replace the three-pole derricks as a tool for performing maintenance and repairs on oil wells in the 1930s but once most of the derricks had been destroyed in a severe wind storm in the 1950s, the portable pulling rig became the machine of choice. Horses were used to pull the portable machines to the wells where they were needed. A steel cable was attached to the top of the pump, through a pulley at the top of the mast on the rig and through another pulley at the bottom of the rig, and finally to the horses.

Oil Drilling Techniques: Portable Pulling Rig
Video clip. Charlie Fairbank discusses how portable pulling rigs work.
 
Duration: 01:46 minutes - Transcription

 

Later, tractors replaced horses for moving the equipment, and a gas-powered motor which sat behind the mast alternately wound and unwound a cable to lift the pump.

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