Word: crude
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...military buildup. The sums of money involved are immense. The President wants to boost the Pentagon's budget from the $171.2 billion allocated by the Carter Administration this year to $226.3 billion in fiscal year 1982. That amount is twice as much as Saudi Arabia earned from crude oil exports last year and twice the gross national product of Switzerland. Moreover by 1986 Reagan wants to increase the defense budget to a staggering $374.3 billion, or more than double this year's level...
...Grab the crude...
...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...
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...
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...