Pumpjacks and crude oil (low grade fuel economy)

The Pump Jack is Rust's dedicated crude oil extractor — a slow, fuel-hungry industrial deployable that transforms a hidden underground oil node into a steady drip of crude, which then refines into Low Grade Fuel (LGF), the lifeblood of MLRS strikes, flamethrowers, Mini and Scrap heli flights, furnaces, and the entire electric/industrial grid. If you have ever wondered why veteran clans guard a single patch of sand in the desert with auto-turrets, this is why.

This guide is the definitive 2026 reference: how to craft the Pump Jack, how to find oil nodes with survey charges, fuel and crude rates, the refinery pipeline, the full LGF economy, and where the Pumpjack sits versus the Quarry in the late-game progression.

1. The Pump Jack item

The Pump Jack is a workbench-tier-2 craftable deployable introduced as part of the original Quarry/Pumpjack rework and still functional in the 2026 build.

Unlike the Mining Quarry, the Pump Jack cannot be placed anywhere — it requires a confirmed crude oil deposit, found with a Survey Charge. (Rust Labs — Pump Jack)

2. Finding an oil node

Oil nodes are invisible underground deposits. You locate them by throwing Survey Charges (200 gunpowder + 20 metal fragments + 10 cloth at WB1).

When a Survey Charge detonates, it ejects loot items showing what the spot contains:

• Crude Oil spat onto the ground = viable Pumpjack site.
• Stones, sulfur, metal ore = Quarry site (no oil).
• Nothing = barren, move on.

Biome bias. Oil nodes can spawn in every biome, but the desert biome has the highest density of crude-only nodes, while arctic and forest tend to favour stone/sulfur/HQM mixes. Most experienced players ring-survey the dunes around monuments like Airfield, Power Plant, or Train Yard. (Corrosion Hour — How To Survey & Place a Pumpjack)

Tip: a single Survey Charge has a small radius, but oil nodes spawn in clusters. If you hit crude, walk 10–15 m and throw another — you will often find a second node nearby.

2a. Monument crude sources — no survey required

If you do not yet own a Pump Jack, the map still hands out crude oil at fixed monuments. These are contested PvP spots, but they need zero setup:

• Small & Large Oil Rig — the richest crude source in the game. Locked crates and the heavy scientist loot routinely contain Barrels of Crude Oil; clearing the rig nets dozens of crude in one run.
• Monument Pump Jacks — static, indestructible jacks sit on the outskirts of the Power Plant, Train Yard, and Water Treatment Plant. Feed them diesel and collect crude with no deployable of your own.
• Oxum's Gas Station & roadside oil barrels — the red oil-drop barrels drop crude and LGF; gas station crates are an early-wipe staple.
• Cargo Ship & CH47 crates — occasional crude barrels among the elite loot.

2b. Common mistakes when starting an oil operation

• Placing on the first crude pop you see. A 1-crude crater locks you into poor yield all wipe — always survey the surrounding cluster before committing 700 frags + 5 HQM.
• Forgetting the Pump Jack runs on diesel, not LGF. Players load Low Grade Fuel, see nothing happen, and assume the jack is broken.
• Letting the output buffer cap at 1000 crude. A jack that overflows stops crediting production — collect every session.
• Refining raw crude in an Outpost safezone while a queue builds, leaving your stack exposed and your time wasted.
• Building the jack inside the main base TC radius. If the base falls, the oil falls with it; keep it in its own small turret compound.
• Skipping wood resupply. A refinery with crude loaded but no wood simply will not run.

3. Fuel consumption and crude output

The Pump Jack burns Low Grade Fuel as its operating input. The current rates (Facepunch parity, unchanged across 2024–2026 patches):

In practice, 100 LGF fed in yields roughly 150–200 crude oil over ~20–25 minutes of runtime. Pumpjacks are noticeably slower per fuel-unit than Quarries are per LGF, which is intentional — crude is meant to be the bottleneck resource. (Rust Fandom — Pump Jack)

3a. How crater quality shifts your real output

The Survey Charge result is not just a yes/no signal — the number of crude items ejected by the charge is a direct preview of the deposit's richness. A poor crater spits 1–2 crude on the ground; a strong one spits 4 or more. Once a Pump Jack sits on that crater, the same quality tier governs how much crude each diesel/LGF tick rewards. Two Pump Jacks burning identical fuel on different craters can finish a wipe hundreds of crude apart, so it genuinely pays to survey a cluster fully and place on the best pop you can find.

Throughput planning. Because a tick lands roughly every 10–15 seconds, a full 500-LGF buffer keeps a Pump Jack running for around 80–120 minutes unattended. Topping it off before logging off is the single most important habit — an idle Pump Jack earns nothing, and the 1000-crude output buffer means a long-running jack can also overflow and waste production if you never collect. Empty the output bin every play session. (Facepunch Wiki — Pump Jack)

4. Crude oil to Low Grade Fuel conversion

Crude oil is useless raw — you must refine it. Each cycle in a Small Oil Refinery:

• Input: 1 Crude Oil
• Output: 1 Low Grade Fuel
• Cycle time: 3.3 seconds per crude
• Fuel: wood keeps the burn running

The refinery needs wood loaded to keep the cracking process lit. Each Crude Oil — including the Barrel of Crude Oil world-loot variant dropped from oil barrels and Oil Rig crates — refines to 1 LGF. (Rust Tips — Low Grade Fuel guide)

Net energy math. Feeding 1 LGF into a Pumpjack yields ~1.5 crude on average, which refines to ~1.5 LGF — roughly break-even to a slight net positive per cycle. That ROI is the reason Pumpjacks are worth running.

4a. Refinery cost, speed and the wood it eats

The craftable Small Oil Refinery costs 500 Metal Fragments + 250 Low Grade Fuel + 200 Wood at Workbench Level 2 (research 250 Scrap via Tech Tree, or 30 Scrap at a Research Table). It holds crude in an input slot and wood as its burn fuel: wood keeps the cracking process running. Each crude refines to 1 Low Grade Fuel and takes 3.3 seconds to process, so a 60-crude diesel haul converts into 60 Low Grade Fuel in a few minutes of cook time.

The monument-only Large Oil Refinery at Outpost and Bandit Camp has a larger input buffer and processes faster, making it the better choice when you arrive with a full barrel inventory and want to clear it before the next player queues. It cannot be researched, blueprinted, or picked up — treat it purely as a public utility.

• Never refine inside a safezone if you can avoid it — monument refineries are public, slow under queue, and your crude sits exposed.
• Keep the refinery fed continuously; a refinery that idles between crude batches simply wastes the wood already loaded as it keeps the burn lit.

5. Refinery types

There are three refineries you will encounter:

The craftable Small Oil Refinery researches for 250 scrap via the Tech Tree (or 30 scrap at a Research Table). Every serious base has one within a TC radius. The Large Oil Refinery cannot be obtained or placed by players — it is a monument-exclusive structure. (Rust Labs — Small Oil Refinery)

6. Quarry vs Pump Jack

The Pumpjack is the only deployable in Rust that produces more fuel than it consumes, making it the cornerstone of late-game industrial setups. (Rust Labs — Mining Quarry)

7. The Low Grade Fuel economy

LGF is needed everywhere: tool cupboards' decay, furnaces in industrial setups, vehicle modules, the Mini/Scrap helis, MLRS rockets, flamethrowers, oil refineries themselves, and powering the Pumpjack and Quarry. The complete sourcing list:

1. Pump Jack → Refinery loop — Best long-term source. Self-sustaining once running.
2. Crude Oil from barrels — Roadside oil barrels (red barrels with the oil-drop icon), Oil Rig crates, and Cargo Ship dwellers occasionally drop Barrels of Crude Oil. Each Crude Oil refines to 1 LGF.
3. Oxum's Gas Station — Reliably spawns LGF in jerry-can loot piles and the green military crates inside. One of the safest farms in early wipe.
4. Outpost LGF vendor — Sells LGF for scrap (typically 1 scrap = 1 LGF, varies by patch). Outpost also has a vendor selling Low Grade Fuel for animal fat / cloth on some servers.
5. Bandit Camp vendors — Similar LGF-for-scrap exchange, plus the gambling wheel sometimes pays out crude.
6. Recycling — Recycling jerry cans, flame turrets, and lanterns yields a small but steady LGF trickle. (Corrosion Hour — Low Grade Fuel)

7a. What actually drains your Low Grade Fuel

Knowing where LGF leaks out of your stockpile is half of running an oil economy. The biggest consumers in a mid-to-late wipe base:

Note the deliberate quirk: the Pump Jack and Mining Quarry themselves run on Diesel Fuel, not Low Grade Fuel, on the current build — diesel is bought from the Outpost vendor or looted, and one diesel barrel drives a full ~60-crude cycle. So the loop is: diesel powers the jack, the jack yields crude, the refinery turns crude into LGF, and that LGF powers everything else. The economy is only net-positive because one cheap diesel barrel unlocks a crude haul worth far more LGF than you spent.

8. Defending a Pumpjack

A Pump Jack is loud — the pumping animation broadcasts audio across a wide radius, and the visual silhouette is unmistakable on the horizon. You cannot stealth it.

Defence checklist:

• Auto-turrets: minimum two SAM/Auto-turrets with overlapping coverage of the deployable and its access path.
• Tool Cupboard: place a TC within range to prevent enemy building near the node — but note that hostile players can still raid the Pumpjack itself.
• External walls or a small compound around the node. Many wipes are won or lost on who controls desert oil clusters.
• HBHF + SAM: if you also defend with a Mini-copter pad nearby, SAM coverage prevents air-raid taps.

Pumpjacks do not have a silent mode — older patch notes confirmed Facepunch has no plans to add a muffler item, despite community requests. (Facepunch Devblog index — Quarry/Pumpjack changes)

9. Pro tips

• Outpost LGF vendor is the most reliable mid-wipe source if you don't yet have a Pumpjack. Stockpile scrap from monuments, do a single Outpost run, and walk away with 500+ LGF for a few hundred scrap. Far safer than farming barrels.
• Each Crude Oil = 1 LGF flat in the Small Oil Refinery. When deciding whether to refine vs. sell, factor in the 3.3-second-per-crude refinery cycle.
• Run two refineries in parallel off one Pumpjack — crude output stockpiles faster than a single small refinery clears it once you tune the LGF feed.
• Place the Pumpjack outside your main base's TC, then build a 1x1 turret compound around the node. Losing a Pumpjack does not compromise your main base, and the placement is locked to the node anyway.
• Survey the desert first, then arctic dunes, then forest. Skip swamp/jungle for oil — yields are statistically lower.
• Don't pump on a fresh wipe day 1. The 700 frags + 5 HQM cost is steep, and you need WB2. Aim for end of day 1 or day 2 deployment.

10. Sources

1. Rust Labs — Pump Jack
2. Rust Labs — Small Oil Refinery
3. Rust Labs — Mining Quarry
4. Rust Fandom Wiki — Pump Jack
5. Corrosion Hour — How To Survey & Place a Pumpjack
6. Corrosion Hour — Low Grade Fuel guide
7. Rust Tips — Low Grade Fuel guide
8. Facepunch Devblog index — Quarry/Pumpjack patch notes

Want more? Quarry · Industrial Crafters