Lufkin comes to Dickinson: Pumping jack manufacturer opens service shop in the Bakken

• Lufkin

Lufkin employee Chris Kostelecky services a piece of a pumping jack Friday at the north Dickinson shop.

Talk about it

Pumping jacks have become synonymous with North Dakota the past few years, and one pumping jack manufacturer recently opened up shop in Dickinson.

Lufkin Industries Inc. completed its Dickinson facility June 15, oil field service secretary Kirstie Avery said. The north Dickinson building will house the sales, oil field service and automation divisions of Lufkin as well as Quinn Pumps, a company that had a presence in Dickinson before Lufkin bought it in December.

The facility includes a shop, yard and offices for local workers as well as corporate visitors, Avery said.

Oil field service will repair all brands of pumping jacks and related equipment, not just Lufkin, Avery said. All Lufkin pumps are manufactured at its facility in Lufkin, Texas.

Automation units are on and off switches for pumping jacks, but they do a lot more than that, automation technician Foster Boyd said.

“We monitor what the well is producing,” he said. “From that data, our equipment will either speed it up, slow it down or possibly shut it off if there’s an equipment malfunction.”

The units can adjust the speed of the pump to match the flow of oil coming from the ground, Boyd said.

On the other end of the well, underground, lies the type of pump manufactured by Canadian-based Quinn. These units aid the above-ground pumping jack, Dickinson store manager Les Borsheim said.

“What they do is totally different from what I do,” he said of his new Lufkin shopmates. “They’re working on the surface pumping units and the electronics, where mine is at the bottom of the well.”

The Williston native, who has spent most of his life working for oil field companies, said it was nice to be in a new facility.

The company is far from fully staffed, and employees from other facilities were helping Dickinson managers go through applications Friday. There are currently 15 people working at the facility, but dozens more will be hired in the following months.

It has locations similar to the Dickinson facility all over the world.

The company was founded in 1902 to manufacture railroad and sawmill equipment, but moved into oil in the 1920s, according to Lufkin’s website. It still works within other industries.

Other offices in this region are in Casper, Wyo., Gillette, Wyo., Glendive, Mont., Minot, Pinedale, Wyo., and Stanley. These include Lufkin facilities as well as Quinn Pumps, which had a presence in the region before Lufkin.

Globally, the company has locations in Australia, Canada, Europe, India, Latin America and the Middle East.

Tags: north dakota, pumping jacks, oil, news, montana, lufkin, business