Oil Well

This article has not been revised for the current version (U51-600112). It was last updated for QLM3-326232. It may contain inaccuracies.

This article has not been revised for the current version (U51-600112). It was last updated for QLM3-326232. It may contain inaccuracies.

Oil Well
Extracts Crude Oil using clean Water. Must be built atop an Oil Reservoir.
Water pumped into an oil reservoir cannot be recovered.
Dimensions	4x4
Category	Utilities
Heat	+2 kDTU/s
Overheat at	2000 °C
Requires	Piped Water: -1 kg/s
Effects	Crude Oil: +3.33 kg/s @90+°C Natural Gas: +33.3 g/s @243°C

The Oil Well can be built atop an Oil Reservoir. Water pumped into an oil reservoir cannot be recovered. The oil is produced at 90 °C or higher, if input water was above 90 °C.

When its internal pressure is too high, it requires to be supplied with Duplicant operation, and it will emit Natural Gas to the environment. The gas is produced at 243 °C, so the operator should wear an Atmo Suit to avoid getting scalded.

The Oil Well stores up to 80 kg of Natural Gas (100% back-pressure) and generates it at a rate of 20 kg per cycle (33.3 g/s).

Water Recovery

Using oil can produce water through several methods. Using the Oil Refinery produces Petroleum and Natural Gas from oil, which then can be used in the Petroleum Generator and the Natural Gas Generator to produce Polluted Water. The Refinery converts only 50% of the mass of the oil into petroleum, and 9% to natural gas, and the generators convert 37.5% of the mass of petroleum to polluted water (overall producing 62.5% the mass of the original water) and 75% of the mass of natural gas to water (producing 22.5% the mass of the original water) respectively. Even including the natural gas emitted by the oil well (which yields 2.25% the mass of the original water), this means a total loss of 12.75% of the water entering the oil well.

However, if the Carbon Dioxide output of the above system is used to ranch Slicksters, it increases the oil in the system by roughly 3.33% overall and reduces the overall water loss to approximately 7%. With molten slicksters, the amount of petroleum in the system can be increased by roughly 14.28%, reducing the loss to roughly 3.82%.

Oil can be directly converted to petroleum without loss of mass by heating it to 400°C. This allows for a net increase in polluted water production. Using this method, the Petroleum generators will produce 125% as much polluted water as the water fed to the oil well (with an extra 2.25% from natural gas generators still). However, heat-producing machines can only withstand these heats if built with space materials, so before producing rockets, this rate of production can only be achieved using a natural heat source like magma or a volcano.

An even more advanced method for maximizing water and energy efficiency is the conversion of oil into natural gas at 67% yield via the Sour Gas - Methane pathway. Oil is heated past the 400°C where it turns into petroleum to 539°C, turning it into sour gas. The sour gas is then cooled below -162°C to turn it into 67% methane and 33% sulfur. The methane is then re-heated above -161°C, turning into natural gas. Burning the natural gas yields 167% as much polluted water as the water fed to the oil well. If efficiently laid out, it also produces significantly more energy than a petroleum based system as the energy density of natural gas (8.89 J/g) is significantly higher than that of petroleum (1 J/g)