The large fluctuation of net torque and the existence of negative torque on the crank output shaft of the beam pumping unit are the decisive factors leading to its low efficiency and high energy consumption. The conventional pumping unit CYJ10-4.2-53HF was selected as the study object on the basis of the fixed shaft secondary balance principle and the positive torque modulation scheme was first proposed according to the following secondary balance principle based on the linkage. The kinematics analysis of the suspension point and the secondary incremental velocity mechanism were carried out using the theory of rigid body plane kinematics. The force analysis of each moving part of the pumping unit was carried out, the net torque expression of the crank output shaft was obtained, and an example calculation was performed. The positive torque beam pumping unit was developed and tested in a field test. The tests showed that the positive torque beam pumping unit was able to fully realize positive torque operation under field well conditions, with a power saving rate of 23.73% and a 14.5% increase in system efficiency, and that the reliability of the pumping unit meets the requirements for field application.

The scrapping of old waterflooding wells and the increase in new waterflooding wells results in mixed flooding of high–low pressure wells in various oil layers in waterflooding systems. In order to meet production operation requirements, the whole system is in a state of high pressure, which leads to an increase in energy consumption and complicates the operation of waterflooding networks. According to the pressure distribution of wells, proceeding with regional accurate waterflooding can reduce operation costs and improve development efficiency. Considering the technical constraints of waterflooding networks, a method was proposed, which can quantitatively optimize classification and zoning for waterflooding of high–low pressure wells according to the pressure of networks and wells. At the same time, the ant colony algorithm and genetic algorithm were fused to form a new adaptive ant colony genetic hybrid algorithm, which can effectively determine the best pumping scheme of the waterflooding station, the pumping flow and optimize the low-pressure area. The K-means algorithm was used to optimize the topology of the pipe network in the high-pressure area to reduce the overall waterflooding pressure. Finally, the method was successfully applied to the large-scale waterflooding system including 2200 wells and 10 waterflooding stations in sites in China. The results show that the method is effective for the operation and reconstruction of waterflooding pipe networks with large-scale and serious mixed high–low pressure.