API Insert and Tubing Pumps

The American Petroleum Institute (API) has chosen standards for certain configurations of rod drawn, downhole pumps. These standards ensure that component parts for these pumps are interchangeable between different manufacturers by setting standards for thread sizes, part dimensions and minimum quality standards. Harbison-Fischer pump parts match API standards for size and dimension and exceed the quality levels set forth by API.

Harbison-Fischer API style sucker rod pumps are available in a wide variety of materials, coatings and wear resistant treatments for corrosion, abrasion and strength requirements. An insert style pump is installed on the sucker rods, inside the tubing and can be retrieved by pulling the sucker rods to the surface. Therefore, an insert pump should always be chosen if the expected fluid production can be delivered by the insert pump size available for the tubing size. The tubing pump should be selected if greater fluid capacity is needed than can be delivered by an insert pump. The tubing pump barrel is part of the tubing string, necessitating the pulling of tubing to service the tubing pump barrel.

API Tubing Pumps (TH)

The Harbison-Fischer Tubing Pump is the most rugged of the four API pumps due to its heavy wall construction. It should be chosen when greater production is needed than can be delivered by an insert pump.

The extensions on each end of the barrel provide a stroke-through arrangement. The stroke length and pump spacing can be adjusted so that the plunger strokes out of the barrel into the extensions at the top of the upstroke and bottom of the downstroke. This spacing allows the plunger to be washed clean in the extensions on the upstroke and downstroke.

Although it can produce the greatest quantity of fluid for a particular tubing size, only the plunger assembly and standing valve can be retrieved with the sucker rods for servicing. The tubing must be pulled to service the pump barrel.

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Bottom Hold-Down Insert Pumps, Thin Wall (RWB) and Heavy Wall (RHB)

The Harbison-Fischer API style Bottom Hold-down Insert Pump is the most popular of the four basic API pumps. This is due to its ruggedness and relative simplicity. The hold-down is located at the bottom of the pump, ensuring that the pressure on the outside of the pump is equal to the hydrostatic pressure due to the column of fluid in the tubing above the pump to the surface. This characteristic balances pressure spikes on the inside of the pump caused by fluid or gas pound. The discharge of fluid from this pump is at a stationary point at the top of the pump, located the length of the pump away from the bottom hold-down. This characteristic is the trade-off for this type of pump since this stagnant fluid area can lead to corrosion of the outside of the pump barrel or allow sand or other particulates to build up and stick the pump in the tubing.

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Top Hold-Down Insert Pumps, Thin Wall (RWA) and Heavy Wall (RHA)

The Harbison-Fischer API style Top Hold-Down Pump is popular in areas that produce sand or other particulates that tend to accumulate over the hold-down of a Bottom Hold-Down. The fluid discharge point of the Top Hold-Down Pump is only inches away from the location of the hold-down, making it difficult to stick it in the tubing. Other advantages are that the Top Hold-Down Pump has greater fluid submergence than the Bottom Hold-Down Pump and there is not a stagnant fluid area between the hold-down and the fluid discharge point. The Top Hold-Down Pump is not as rugged as the bottom hold-down since the outside of the pump is only subjected to formation pressure.

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Traveling Barrel Insert Pumps, Thin Wall (RWT) and Heavy Wall (RHT)

The Harbison-Fischer API style Traveling Barrel Pump is useful in pumping conditions that are characterized by relatively heavy particulate production. The traveling barrel helps to keep sand or other particulates in movement above the hold-down, located on the bottom of the pump, reducing the possibility of a stuck pump. The traveling valve is located on the top of the pump so that it automatically closes in times of pump inactivity, preventing particulates from settling inside the pump. The trade-off for this advantage is that the pump is not as good for gas compression as the two stationary barrel insert pumps, and that the pumping pressure is balanced on a pull tube that can bow and cause extra pump friction and wear on the pull tube.

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