Through North America there are deposits of oil and gas that are buried deep below the surface of the earth. Hundreds of feet underground the fossil fuels are waiting to be discovered and extracted and for a geologist the need to reach down to the deposits may require specialized downhole drilling equipment that can penetrate the surface layers of rock and soil to reach deep into the layers of the earth and locate the oil or gas pocket. On the surface the rock formations, natural land formations and specific types of rock and minerals indicate where oil or gas might be discovered. Once confirmed the find needs to be brought up to the surface where the crude oil is refined and gases altered to make them safe to use.
After the initial exploration has revealed the whereabouts of a pocket of gas or oil teams of engineers are bought in to erect derricks and drilling platforms that are able to reach down to where the fossil fuels are waiting to be brought out of the ground. Using a series of motors and lengths of pipe to break through the layers of rock and earth the crews of engineers and oil workers are able to construct the machines that do the pumping and bring barrels of oil up to the surface where it is put into a pipeline and shipped out to refining stations.
By supplying the oil and gas industry with tools and equipment that can be special ordered and designed for the rough terrain or hard to reach places where oil has been located the crews of men and women who are drilling for fossil fuels are able to penetrate the various layers of rock and soil to reach the spot where the drill can be replaced with a fitted pipe that pumps the crude liquids out of the ground. Refined in industrial plants that are constructed especially for the oil and gas companies the exploration and extraction of fossil fuels continues to be a growth industry.
All around the US and Canada there are large and small operations that are working to bring the precious oils to the light of day. In many places standard pumping and drilling equipment is used to harvest the black liquid from the earth, but occasionally there is a need for customized downhole drilling equipment to be manufactured for the shale or sediment that makes conventional drilling difficult. Oil fields that are situated on shale and which have saturated the rock require a refining process that is different than any other form of extraction.