[seemoAR]

I live in a part of the US where oil wells are very common. I have never been able to understand why most oil wells will be pumping merrily away until there is talk of an energy shortage. For some reason, the pumps seem to quit running. When the price of gas increases the pumps start again.

[Smokin' Joe]

While people commonly see what they want to, not all wells pump continuously, for starters. Some are on pump/recovery cycles which allow the well to equalize (refill) for a while, then resume pumping. (otherwise, the pump rate would exceed the rate of oil flow into the well and the motion would be wasted--as would the wear and tear on, and expense of running the pump). A good production hand will keep track of the refill rates and fluids produced for the well over its life and try to maintain an optimum rate of production with a minimum of salt water production, so the length of the recovery cycle may vary for any given well, and generally gets longer as the well depletes.

Failure to adjust the cycle can result in 'coning in' a well, to the point where it will only produce salt water, leaving a great deal of oil unproduced and unavailable to the wellbore (it ruins the well), or less than optimal production.

Your moments of observation may have coincided with the recovery part of the cycle, the differences may be attributable to the pumper changing the duration of the cycle in order to optimize production from an older well.

The only instance I know when price caused a slowdown in the rate of production was in 98/99. Lift costs exceeded the price of oil ($4.50/bbl for sour, $6.50/bbl for sweet crude in this area), and the Canadians were slowing their pump jacks down so they did not lose money faster.