The minimum of flow at which a well ceases to be profitable varies according to location, and is fixed by many conditions of which transportation and quality are the most important. Thus, in Mexico, a well yielding only fifty or one hundred barrels per day is usually abandoned as uncommercial, whereas in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where the facilities for handling are better, there are thousands of old “pumpers” in operation producing a superior grade of oil, many of which supply only one-fourth of a barrel per day. The production of the first well drilled on a new location fixes the policy to be pursued with regard to the rest of the acreage under lease. After it has been tested and proven to be satisfactory the remainder of the property is drilled as quickly as possible. If the field is shallow and the wells are all “pumpers,” a central power station operated by gas or gasoline is sometimes installed which may provide the energy for pumping as many as a dozen wells. The shackle-rods spread out over the field like a spider’s web, and the rhythmical “chug-chug” is music to the ears of the oil man and also to the farmer who has leased the oil rights to him--for the song of the pumping plant symbolizes fat royalties. It will be clear to the reader that even in the initial process the production of crude petroleum under modern standardized processes which eliminate, so far as possible, waste of labour or of product, involves a considerable capital expenditure. The cost of a well in a new district, where the depth is likely to be in the neighbourhood of three thousand feet, may amount to considerably more than $50,000 and a year may pass in the process of drilling. In the case of deep wells a permanent derrick is built, but in earlier days, for shallower holes a portable drilling machine was used, and with good fortune oil was often reached within a short time and the cost kept well within a margin of $5,000. It will be remembered that in the original Drake well at Titusville, oil was struck at sixty-nine and a half feet and that it took seven months to drill the well; a concrete illustration of the improvement in methods which has transpired in sixty years. But the days of cheap drilling have passed into the limbo of half-forgotten things and there is practically no oil production at the present time which does not represent a very considerable initial outlay. CHAPTER VIII COLLECTING AND TRANSPORTING CRUDE: THE PIPE LINE When a new lease or area proves itself to be commercially productive, marketing the product becomes the next consideration. In the earliest stages of recovery and storage of petroleum there were great losses through lack of facilities, but modern mechanical science has largely eliminated the appalling waste of early days.