Oil & Gas Association of West Texas Hold Meeting on Oil Field Theft
(David Gomez, News Anchor)
Odessa, Texas/February 7, 2026-This is DRB MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS DIGITAL NEWS. Oilfield theft by foreign actors is causing billions in losses for oil companies. Danny Barrera has the story.
The Oil and Gas Association of West Texas held its regularly scheduled meeting to share information on oilfield theft with law enforcement agencies representing multiple county municipalities across West Texas and the Permian Basin, along with representatives from the Texas Legislature and oil company executives.
(Mayes Middleton-Candidate for Texas Attorney General)
“This is about law and order. We’re seeing this problem all over the state with oil field theft, and it is in the magnitude of billions of dollars. And that could potentially compromise Texas’s energy dominance, because look, that’s money that operators don’t have to invest in maintaining production, growing production, drilling, completing new wells, which we know benefits all of us. And that’s really at the end of the day, our Texas energy dominance.”
The meeting aims to bring together stakeholders to identify real-world solutions and strategic partnerships that support law enforcement in addressing the rapidly growing problem of oilfield theft.
(David Criner, Sheriff-Midland County Sheriff’s Office/Midland, Texas)
“It’s a constant battle. But, you know, we have meetings once a month with the oil field theft intelligence hearing in our office at the Midland County Sheriff’s Office. And that’s where the companies come in. And they hear our concerns. They voiced their concerns. Get us all on the same page, kind of like a reboot every month to make sure that we’re doing the right thing. And sharing information is a big key, as you heard today. And we do share that information, and we are combating it the best we can right now. But there’s always room for improvement. But we like our partnerships with the major oil companies and the local people to combat this problem and get these guys off the streets.”
The goal of the meeting is to assist law enforcement in combating the escalating crime of oilfield theft. Additional objectives include urging state legislators to pass stronger laws and ensuring those laws are enforced effectively.
(David Landersman, Sheriff-Loving County/Mentone, Texas)
“It is a billion-dollar industry that’s going on here. And the statistics. Congressman Gonzalez was saying are wrong. And I’ll tell you I’ll tell you one example. We get multiple calls. Somebody wants to do a complaint. They’re missing copper. They’re missing petroleum. It easily half of the cases. It’s an inside job. So, all those guys drive trucks and. Yeah, they’re from Afghanistan or someplace. And when the company finds out that it’s their people, they stop the complaint right there, so it doesn’t make the statistic. So, it’s actually worse than all these guys get up there. We need to make it so that the penalty and that works for us is harsh. We need to jam these things up. We need to get after these guys easily. Half of the people that we we end up jamming up. It’s not that they got a license. They don’t even have a regular driver’s license, much, much less a CDL. Those are the issues. And those things don’t always make the statistics.”
For DRB Media Communications Digital News, Danny Barrera.
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