Oil Generation
There are two basic ways oil generates in GT:NH
- Spouts visible from the surface
- Underground (below bedrock) oil pools
Spouts
Spouts are a great source of oil at the start of your game. There are a couple of key things to know:
- They are very dangerous. Once you fall in, you'll probably die. Don't fall in.
- They can catch on fire from mobs or lightning. Put a cobble or dirt cover above any in range until you're ready to extract
- The higher the spout, the larger the amount of oil available. Large ones can have 4000+ buckets of oil
You will need a GT pump, generator and some kind of tank above the pump for the oil to collect. A chunkloader is also recommended so that the stuff works while you are away. Pumps don't dig through dirt/rock, so make sure it is centered exactly over the oil spout. They also don't recover mining pipe when completed. It can be risky to retrieve them, esp. since they will be in a large dark room, potentially with dangerous oil puddles left.
Don't forget to cover up the top of your machines, or rain will cause them to explode. Build a cobble hut or whatever.
Underground pools
Underground pools require the multiblock drilling rigs. There are currently 4 types of underground fossil fuels:
- Natural gas
- light 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 gregger can use this to their advantage when prospecting. Within the 8x8 chunks, the oil can be +- 25% the designated value.
The algoritm is heavily skewed to generate lower quantities of oil, but theoretically the max is ~781 L/t.
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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
Light Oil
Not that great a liquid, but can be useful in large quantities for refinery gas 150L Light Oil
- 10L Sulfuric Heavy Fuel
- 20L Sulfuric Light Fuel
- 30L Sulfuric Naphtha
- 240L Sulfuric Gas
Oil
Your basic oil type, same as the oil spouts. 50L Oil distillation products
- 15L Sulfuric Heavy Fuel
- 50L Sulfuric Light Fuel
- 20L Sulfuric Naphtha
- 60L Sulfuric Gas
Raw Oil
Alternative to Oil, identical refinery products but 50% as efficient 100L Raw Oil distillation products
- 15L Sulfuric Heavy Fuel
- 50L Sulfuric Light Fuel
- 20L Sulfuric Naphtha
- 60L Sulfuric Gas
Heavy oil
Perfect for getting heavy fuel for your diesel mixing needs. 100L Heavy Oil distillation products
- 250L Sulfuric Heavy Fuel
- 45L Sulfuric Light Fuel
- 15L Sulfuric Naphtha
- 60L Sulfuric Gas
Oil Drilling Rig Tiers and Operation Range
Here are some information about Oil Drilling Rig Tiers and their operation ranges.
How much oil will I get from my drill?
Calculating how much oil you will get from your drill 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.
Also, 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 4x4 or 8x8 tier 2 or 3, the drill, no matter where it is placed in the 4x4 or 8x8 grid, will always pull oil from the same group of chunks. For example, looking at X 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.
| 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
| 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)