Oklahoma’s Crude Boom is Bringing Out ‘Oil-Field Outlaws’

• Joe Wertz
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  Joe Wertz was a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma from 2011-2019. He reported on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets. He previously worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.

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Theft of crude and oil-field equipment is on the rise in western and central Oklahoma, the Journal Record‘s Sarah Terry-Cobo reports.

Such theft is difficult to detect because well sites are concentrated in sparsely populated parts of rural Oklahoma. A multi-county response is being organized with state investigators, county sheriffs and corporate security officials, the Journal reports.

Stolen crude is loaded into tankers and transported to reclaimers, which buy the oil and sell it to refiners. There are no laws that require reclaimers track the origin of crude, the paper reports:

Tracking crude oil transports could provide a critical source of information in theft cases.