Oil Generation

There are two basic ways Oil generates in GT:NH; as spouts visible from the surface, and as an Underground Fluid oil field below Bedrock. Spouts and fields are placed during chunk generation.

Spouts

BuildCraft Oil Spout

Spouts are a great source of oil in early tiers. For a sample set-up, see this page.

• They are very dangerous. If the player falls in, death is virtually guaranteed.
• They can catch on fire from mobs or lightning. Put a cobble or dirt cover above any nearby oil spouts. Gravel is not recommended as it will prevent pumping later.
• The higher the spout, the larger the amount of oil available. Large ones can have 4000+ buckets of oil
• Spouts lead down to underground oil pools. Even after pumping there will be a large dark cavern, potentially with dangerous oil puddles left.

Underground Fluids

Underground Fluids require multi-block Oil/Gas/Fluid Drilling Rigs. There are currently 5 types of underground fossil fuels:

• Natural Gas
• Light Oil
• Oil
• Medium Oil
• Heavy Oil

Use the Seismic Prospector to locate chunks with large amounts of oil. The spawning is done in an 8x8 chunk grid with no offset. For example, chunks 15,15; 15,16; 16,15; 16,16 are all in different 8x8 oil spawns - a smart player can use this to their advantage when prospecting. Within the 8x8 chunks, the oil can be +- 25% the designated value.

The algorithm is heavily skewed to generate lower quantities of oil, but theoretically the max is ~781 L/t.

• 

  Histogram of 1250 oil area spawning values. The 8x8 chunks within would be +-25% of these values.

Any oil amount above ~200 L/t is a good place to begin drilling. Higher tier oil derricks will drill a wider area around it, gathering oil from multiple chunks.

Natural Gas

Converts to Refinery Gas with H in a Chemical Reactor. 1000L Refinery Gas distillation products (additional products available via steam and hydro cracking)

• 60L Butane
• 70L Propane
• 100L Ethane
• 750L Methane
• 20L Helium

Oil

Oil is considered an important resource since it can be used to produce a number of fuels. In addition to that many distillates are commonly used for polyethylene, TNT, rubber and much more.

• Oil is commonly used as it provides a good distribution of Light Fuel and Heavy Fuel, as well as Naphta. Oil sprouts have this type.
• Medium Oil (Raw Oil) is half as efficient as standard oil with the same distribution of distillates.
• Light Oil produces a high portion of Sulfuric Gas which makes this fluid less useful in most cases. Can be useful in large quantities for Refinery Gas.
• Heavy Oil distills to a lot of Sulfuric Heavy Fuel. Perfect for getting Heavy Fuel for your Diesel mixing needs.

All Oils also have an additional recipe in the Distillation Tower, producing Naphthenic Acid. Check NEI for specifics.

Distilliation Results	Sulfuric Heavy Fuel	Sulfuric Light Fuel	Sulfuric Naptha	Sulfuric Gas
50L Oil	15L	50L	20L	60L
100L Raw Oil	15L	50L	20L	60L
150L Light Oil	10L	20L	30L	240L
100L Heavy Oil	250L	45L	15L	60L

Oil Drilling Rig Tiers and Operation Range

Oil Drilling Rigs always work on a fixed chunk grid inside their oil field.

Oil Drill Yields

Calculating how much oil a drill will yield is a little complicated. The drills run on "operations" and how many ticks equal one operation varies based on the drill machine tier, and the energy hatch tier. The amount of oil pulled from each chunk per operation depends on the tier of the energy hatch above the minimum tier as well.

One important concept is that the oil drill will always drill on range size boundaries. For a 1x1 tier 1 oil drill, that isn't important. For 2x2 or 4x4 tier 2 or 3, the drill, no matter where it is placed in the 2x2 or 4x4 grid, will always pull oil from the same group of chunks. For example, looking at X for a 4x4 drill

Chunks and how they group for a 4x4 drill

Chunk X	Group
-5	-2
-4	-1
-3	-1
-2	-1
-1	-1
0	0
1	0
2	0
3	0
4	1
5	1

Here are some oil values in a 4x4 chunk group.

Example oil found in chunks

Amount	Amount	Amount	Amount	Total oil in the row
423	432	654	633	2142
630	499	563	476	2168
476	602	560	444	2082
458	651	490	525	2124

Total oil in 4x4 grid = 8516

To calculate the ticks per operation, use the base values below

Base ticks per operation

Tier	Base value
1	8
2	32
3	32

For each tier the energy hatch is above the minimum, divide the base value by 2. For example, if you are using an HV energy hatch on an MV oil drill, your ticks per operation is 4.

Now, the amount of oil pulled out of each chunk is (the amount in the chunk) * (.5 + .25 (tiers above minimum)). So for an MV energy hatch on an MV oil drill, your oil removed is .5. For an HV hatch on an MV drill, the oil removed is .75.

So now we can combine these together. For a tier 2 drill with HV energy hatches (the minimum) 8516 * (.5) = 4258 oil per operation.

To calculate oil per second (4258L / operation) * (20 ticks per second) / (32 ticks per operation) = 2661 L/s

Measuring for 30s, I retrieved 80902L, or 80902L/30S = 2692L/s

Watch out for the values given by the prospector. The rounding it does is not the same as the oil pump code, so you may get +-1L per each chunk.

Total oil Yield per Chunk

The total oil or any fluid that can be extracted from a chunk can be found by the given formula

Total oil yield =1000*N^2 - 500*N*X-500*X

N=Z/X

Z=How much in Liters the pump will give before pumping starts

X=How much does the pump decrease per 1000 cycles (generally 1)