By Scott Ronalds

The price of a barrel of oil recently topped $135.  Get out the balaclava.  It’s time to steal us some crude.  At least that’s the thinking of the opportunistic criminal in Texas.

An article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that there’s been a sharp rise in oil field thefts in the Longhorn State.  While stealing oil sounds like an obscure and difficult venture, apparently it’s relatively easy.  According to the article, thieves are “tapping into pipelines, paying off truck drivers and sometimes simply driving up to wells in tanker trucks and pumping the oil out of storage containers.”  There’s also a thriving black market for tools and drilling equipment.

It’s a sign of the times, I guess.

At Steadyhand, our managers have exposure to the energy sector, but are spending more time looking at what the thieves are passing over.