Oil Theft Is Burning a Billion-Dollar Hole in the West Texas Economy

The Martin County Sheriff’s Office sits along Interstate 20 in West Texas, a stretch of dusty plains and sunbaked highways that could almost be the setting for a Mad Max movie. It’s sparse—oil wells outnumber people—but that doesn’t mean it’s quiet for Sheriff Randy Cozart. At least once a week, someone calls to say their oil field has been robbed: trailers missing, copper wire yanked and, most of all, crude stolen. In total, some 500 barrels’ worth of oil go missing in Martin County every week, Cozart estimates. At last year’s average of $65 a barrel, that’s an annual loss of roughly $1.7 million. At today’s war-heightened prices, it would be far more.

A similar scene is playing out in dozens of other counties across the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, the world’s most prolific shale oil patch. Law enforcement officials, legislators, trade groups and energy producers say people are stealing more crude than ever, often laundering it into local supply chains or driving it to Mexico to offload it. “Where there’s money, there’s crime,” says Cozart, who, like many in the region, once worked in the oil industry himself. “And there’s lots of money in oil right now.”