Donkey

An oil well in Brunei. It produces very little crude, maybe 50 to 100 barrels/day? The well is shallow and probably drilled more than 50 years ago. Since oil was discovered off-shore, not many new production wells were drilled on land after 1970. An off-shore well will flow without pumping, probably for 10 years or more; producing as much as 1000 barrels/day! There are about 800 wells out there in the South China Sea off-shore Brunei, Sarawak and Sabah. Some of these are gas wells producing natural gas.

After about 10 years the well pressure slowly declines. Other methods (eg. gas lifting) are used to enable the old wells to continue production for a few more years. Finally, a pump (donkey) will be installed to continue extraction of crude for another 20 years or more. Well No: 1 a shallow well on the Canada Hill in Miri produced oil for over 50 years. Some wells in the Seria land fields near Anduki have been producing even longer.