Hot Oil Heists

Grab the crude and run

The galloping cost of oil has spawned a new breed of rustlers on the American prairies. Instead of roping longhorns, they steal crude oil--right from the production fields. Driving tanker trucks capable of carrying up to 200 bbl. of crude, these so-called hot oilers simply pull up to remote storage facilities, drain the contents into their vehicles, then skedaddle with their liquid loot.

No one knows precisely how much fuel is pilfered this way, but the amount is substantial. One petroleum executive estimates that as much as 3% of his company's output is stolen before it can be moved to refineries. While such stealing is common in Texas, Louisiana, California and other oil states, it is most serious in Oklahoma, where the number of wells now stands at 100,000.

Typically, the thefts involve a ring of crooks working closely together. First a "pumper," an oil-company employee assigned to watch over an oil well, surreptitiously diverts crude into a storage tank reserved for waste salt water, which is a byproduct of the normal production process. Then the hot oiler, usually someone hired to drain the saltwater tank, pumps out the crude and carries it away. He trucks it to an oil reclaimer, whose business is buying and processing sludgy, low-grade oil. The hot oiler sells his load to the reclaimer for about $15 per bbl., well below the legitimate market price of $38.

The entire heist may take less than an hour. Each load earns the hot oiler at least $900, minus whatever kickback the pumper demands. One energetic trucker has boasted of pocketing $50,000 in just six months of steady stealing.

Police face a particularly difficult job in rounding up the outlaws. Unless a hot oiler is actually caught tapping a storage tank, the evidence needed to press charges is hard to find, since the crude he has swiped cannot be traced. Moreover, many oil companies have been reluctant to cooperate in prosecutions because they dislike admitting to the public and their shareholders that they have been bilked by their own employees.

The state legislature in Oklahoma is now considering measures to curb the thefts, including a law allowing police to halt oil tanker trucks on the highways and demand to see papers that prove the origin of the load. Meanwhile, several oil firms have engaged an outfit called Oilfield Security Patrol Inc. to keep heavy guard over their well sites. Company President Jack Gibson, an ex-policeman, is afraid that curbing the thievery could get rough. Says he: "When a guy is sitting there with $8,000 worth of hot oil in his truck, he is not going to let someone talk him out of it."

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