Theft causes tank battery fire

[BlackGold]

Thieves cause tank battery fire, explosion in Reeves County, officials say

So a few questions for you gurus:

#1 Are vacuum trucks running on NatGas?

#2 Can you pipe pipeline NatGas straight into a natgas powered vehicle and it would run with no processing?

#3 Are the pressures similar from pipeline to car/truck tank?

#4 Are there small individually owned vacuum truck companies that would benefit from stealing natgas to fill up? Am I wrong to imagine these would be SLB, Baker/Hughes, Badger or some big servicing company? If they were big company trucks, how do the little guy drivers benefit from trying to steal pipeline gas?

#5 Is this common or did these two yahoos just try to do something stupid?

#6 What do these thieves do with the oil and gas they steal? Who buys it? Do people run home based refineries to produce diesel or some other fuel product?

Obviously I have no clue about any of these questions, so please forgive me.

[Rock_Man]

Some vacuum trucks do run on natural gas - but natural gas straight from a pipeline on a well isn’t compatible for vehicle use. Vacuum truck services are NOT SLB, Baker, et al - but instead are smaller contractors. Stealing oil doesn’t happen as much as it used to due to present day remote monitoring systems. And if someone does manage to steal some oil, there is always someone to buy it on the black market (and they will then sell it to a refinery for processing).