vtsnowedin wrote:Show us one of these engines that burns WTI just as it comes out of the ground if you would please. The Saudis burn some of their crude directly to turn steam turbines but they are the only ones using raw crude that way..
The total energy cost is measured in BTUs and Governments ,military and coffee are measured in dollars which are subject to inflation. Your mixing apples with oranges yet again. The labor cost of installing a length of well casing steel pipe varies greatly depending on where the well is. The energy cost of making the steel in that pipe is constant and has to be divided by all the barrels of oil that flow through that pipe.
To be fair back when WTI was what came out of the ground in West Texas as the name implies many pump jacks were powered by hot bulb engines burning a small fraction of the crude exactly as it was when it came out of the ground. Hot Bulb engines are extremely reliable, once they are running at idle speed they will keep on chugging for months or even years so long as the fuel is kept flowing and the lubrication system gets topped off every few days to keep everything lubricated. That is why these engines are still loved in some low tech countries, even though they are roughly half as efficient as a Diesel engine because their compression ratio is very low.
It takes roughly 5-10 minutes of heat8ing to get the bulb hot enough, but once running the heat of the combustion keeps it hot and these engines just putter along forever. https://youtu.be/Y-RVZdz-TBA?t=5m57s