One hydraulic drive instead of a gearbox, belts and counterweights
A conventional pumping unit converts rotation into reciprocating motion through a gearbox, a belt drive and a counterbalance that has to be set by hand. Every one of those elements is a wear point, a maintenance visit and a constraint on how the well can be operated. Neolift's Digital Linear Unit replaces all of them with a single hydraulic linear drive under digital control.
The hydraulic architecture is not new: it carries more than 12 years of operating heritage and over 400 units in the field. What Neolift did was re-engineer it for unconventional conditions.
Why an unconventional well needs a different unit
A shale well with a horizontal lateral does not behave like a vertical well. Nearly two miles of elastic rod lies against the tubing through every bend of the trajectory, the fluid carries free gas, and production falls steeply in the first months instead of settling into a plateau. Equipment sized for a stable vertical well spends most of its life operating outside the range it was designed for.
- Designed for deviated, deep, slim and high-friction wells
- Stroke length and speed adjust across the full decline curve without changing equipment
- Tolerant of the high gas fractions typical of unconventional production
- Up to 30% better energy efficiency — no VFD and no downhole backpressure regulator burning energy
Installed without concrete, piles or wellhead modifications
The unit does not need a civil foundation. That removes the longest and least predictable part of a conventional installation — curing time, concrete logistics and the heavy equipment that comes with them — and it is why a unit can arrive, be installed, started and producing within the same working day.
- No concrete foundation and no piles
- No modification to the wellhead
- 90% fewer heavy-equipment hours on location
- 90% lower installation-related CO₂
- Up to 80% lower CAPEX than a conventional pumping unit
Range
The units are built in two stroke lengths and across a range of installed power, so a single architecture covers a well from its initial rates down the decline curve.
| Stroke length | 240" and 360" |
|---|---|
| Installed power | 55 kW – 140 kW |
| Pumping speed | up to 6.5 strokes per minute |
HM 350: 35,000 lbf continuous
The HM 350 series operates at up to 35,000 pounds-force on a continuous basis — a continuous duty rating, not a peak figure. That load capacity is what allows rod pumping in shale oil wells with 2-inch pumps without difficulty, which is where conventional equipment usually runs out of margin.
The unit is only half of it: the control is the other half
The hardware makes a wider operating range physically possible. What decides whether the well uses that range well is the control layer. Neolift's units run under ALS autopilot: the engineer sets what the well has to achieve and the limits it has to respect, and the system governs stroke, speed and motion accordingly, stroke by stroke, reading the pump and the rod string in real time.
Delivered as a service, not as a capital purchase
Units are operated in the field under Smart Rental Contracts, with commercial terms that scale up and down with the life of the field.
Evaluating a well or a field?
Tell us the conditions and our engineers will tell you whether this fits.
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