JWR,
I noticed your description of “drip” as an alternative fuel in your novel “Survivors”. Many years ago I was on a task force in Farmington, New Mexico to catch and convict “drip thieves”. I was then a Special Texas Ranger and worked along with New Mexico Highway Patrol, local law enforcement officials and the then Tenneco Oil Company Security investigators. Theft of drip was very big then, as probably now due to the high cost of gasoline. I will share with you some of what we learned from the experts, the actual thieves we caught.
First of all it is not called “drip oil”, but only “drip” in thieves term. It is actually what the oil industry calls “condensate” and as you correctly stated is a by product of natural gas production. It is the condensate liquid that forms from natural gas as it is produced from the wells. Some wells are “wetter” than others and produce more condensate. Those are the wells drip users look for. Wells produce through a well head valve system and flow through pipes to the collection system. Each well has a flow meter, usually a Barton type, that measures the volume of gas produced. Several wells may feed their condensate into what is usually a “210” barrel collection tank, also low points in the pipelines collect the condensate and are routed to the storage tanks. These tanks are the targets of drip users, which will fuel vehicles.
Drip users, which is illegal but common in areas where it exists, like the high gravity clean type, and different wells produce different types. One thief explained the tests he used to test drip, the spit test and the burn test. He would get drip from the valves on the lower part of the storage tanks, the 210 barrel type. He would first get a sample through the top of the tank by climbing the catwalk to the upper hatch, oddly enough called the “thief hatch”, he would lower a small can into the hatch and obtain a sample of the condensate, either a coffee can or similar. Once he had several inches of drip, he would first spit into the drip and see how fast it sank, the faster the better the drip. If it lingered on top or was slow to sink, it was not what he wanted. If it sank and passed that test, he would light the fluid and watch the flame, if it was blue, it was great, if it was yellow or orange and let off smoke, it was too high in sulfur and not too good. Once he identified a good well, he always remembered where it was located.
One thief drove a van and had 55 gallon drums in the back that he would fill. The 210 designation tanks were 20′ tall and gravity would usually fill the drums. He would also fill his own gas tank in the van. But, a good thief would always install a drain cock in his tank in case he got bad drip and had to dump it. Many thieves would use drip for mainly private consumption, however we caught some selling it to regular gas stations who would just mix it with their regular gas and sell it blended, no one knew.
Some thieves told us they needed to advance or retard their distributors a bit to get drip to run the best, but that was in a day before all this electronic fuel injection stuff.
I hope I did not go into too much detail, but now you have a basic idea of drip usage in vehicles and how it is stolen. If I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to ask.
Regards, – C.R., Retired in Colorado