Software for the yard running mud pumps.

A mud pump is the unit that keeps a well circulating — a heavy reciprocating pump that pushes drilling fluid down the drillstring, out the bit, and back up the annulus carrying cuttings with it. Yards rent them when a rig's own pump is down, undersized for a deep or high-pressure section, or pulled for a fluid-end rebuild while the well keeps turning. That duty is brutal on a fleet: the fluid end runs abrasive mud at high pressure for long stretches, liners and pistons and valves wear out as consumables, and a single washout can chew a unit apart in a shift. The pump is also a skid that takes a lowboy and a crane to move, not a unit a driver hops in and steers. EquipFlow runs mud pumps the way the oilfield yard that built it runs them — dispatch, billing, maintenance, and return inspection on one record per unit.

Built inside Rental King, right now.

Rental King is a heavy-equipment rental yard in Odessa and Midland, TX. They run mud pumps, manlifts, forklifts, light towers, generators, compressors, and water trucks on MSA contracts through the Permian Basin — 24/7, oilfield pace. EquipFlow was designed and first deployed inside that yard. Every feature was tested against their live operation before it shipped. The product runs there today.

Mud pumps are high-utilization, high-consumable units, and that combination is where money slips through a rental yard. A pump rented to an MSA rig earns nothing extra if the standby hours through connections and trips never reach the invoice, and it loses real money if a washed-out fluid end goes back out the gate without the damage caught, photographed, and charged. Liners, pistons, and valves are consumables a customer is supposed to pay for as they wear, so they have to be tracked against the unit and billed as their own line rather than absorbed by the yard. The hour meter anchors both the PM schedule and the bill, so it has to be captured the same way every time — at return, on the inspection, against the rental record. When dispatch, billing, maintenance, and inspection all read from one unit record, the dispatcher quotes the right rate, the mechanic services the power end and fluid end against real hours, and the bookkeeper closes the month without reconstructing it from memory.

Mud Pump specs the rental record tracks.

Every number below is a sourced specification range. The render layer is the only path these values reach the page — they live on the unit record, not in a dispatcher's head.

Rated input power

1300-2200hp

Rated speed (max strokes/min)

120spm

Stroke length

12in

Liner diameter range

5-7in

Max discharge pressure

5000-7500psi

Max flow rate at rated speed

367-720gpm

Approximate dry weight

54655lb

How EquipFlow handles mud pumps on the dispatch board.

A mud pump is a heavy skid, not a drive-away unit, so the dispatch board treats it as a load-out that needs a lowboy, a route, and a crane or forklift on both ends. The dispatcher sees which units are on a rig, which are loaded for a move, and which are due back, on the same responsive screen at any hour. The trap with mud pumps is the package: a fluid end is useless on location without the right liners and pistons sized for the customer's program, the suction and discharge dampeners, the charge pump, and the relief valve. A unit dispatched short a liner set or a charge pump is a crane call and a lost morning, so the dispatcher confirms the full package on the rental record before the truck leaves. Because rigs book the same horsepower class during overlapping spud windows, the board surfaces a double-booking at the point of assignment rather than at the gate.

Billing mud pumps — MSA, standby, and site-level tax.

Mud pump demand in the oilfield runs on MSA contracts, so the negotiated rate lives as an override on the customer record per equipment class, not in a sheet the dispatcher keeps current by hand. A rental created for that account picks up the right rate automatically. Standby is the line that matters most on a pump: a unit sits idle but rented through connections, trips, bit changes, and rig downtime, and that idle time bills at a rate separate from active circulating hours. The dispatcher marks standby and the invoice carries both lines without a month-end rebuild. Mobilization, demobilization, and any consumable charges for liners, pistons, and valves ride the same invoice. Tax jurisdiction is set on the delivery-site record, so a pump that moved between wells in different counties still gets the correct rate per site. Invoices post to QuickBooks Online on close.

Maintenance on mud pumps.

Mud pump PM is hour-meter driven, not calendar driven, because a unit on a deep well can run almost continuously for weeks while a yard spare sits idle for a season. The hour reading posts when the return inspection records it, and the maintenance module advances the PM clock from that reading so the next service falls on real running time. The pump splits into two worlds the work orders have to respect: the power end — crankshaft, bearings, gears, and the oil bath that protects them — and the fluid end, where liners, pistons, valves, seats, and packing are consumable wear parts that get tracked, swapped, and charged as their own line. PM leans on power-end oil and filtration, valve and seat condition, packing, and the suction and discharge dampener charge. Work orders, parts, and meter history live on the unit record, which is also where a damage charge from a return inspection becomes a repair ticket.

Mud Pump return inspections.

Two inspection rhythms apply. The crew-facing in-service checks happen on the rig while the pump is circulating — watching for washouts, monitoring discharge pressure against the relief setting, and listening to the power end — and that is the customer's responsibility while the unit is on rent. The yard's own control is the return inspection: before a mud pump comes off rent, the hand runs a mobile-web checklist on a phone, no app install, records the hour-meter reading, and attaches required photos that cannot be skipped. Pump-specific checks carry the weight here — liner and piston wear, valve and seat condition, packing and the fluid-end bore for washout scoring, the power-end oil for metal, and dampener and relief-valve condition. The return inspection ties to the rental record before the pump leaves the customer location, so a dispute over a washed-out fluid end has photos and a timestamp behind it.

Common mud pump classes in the field.

The product, the same way it runs for mud pumps.

The sections below are the EquipFlow modules that matter most when running mud pumps — each links to the full feature detail.

Operator guides for running mud pumps.

Field-tested playbooks that go deeper on pricing, dispatch, billing, and maintenance for fleets like this.

• Dewatering Pump Rental Guide →
• Equipment Rental for Oilfield Operations →
• How to Bill for Equipment on Standby →
• How to Handle Rush and Emergency Rentals →

What you give up running mud pumps in EquipFlow.

EquipFlow is a web app, so the return inspection needs a signal to load. On a remote rig with no coverage, the hand cannot complete the mobile inspection at the location; most yards run the inspection back at the yard on return instead, which means the photos and hour reading land later than ideal. There is no built-in telematics or rig-data integration today, so pump strokes, discharge pressure, and run hours from a contractor's own monitoring are not pulled automatically — the hour meter is captured at return. And the rate logic is built around the MSA-and-standby model the oilfield runs on; a yard with an unusual pump-billing structure should bring it to the demo to be scoped honestly.