Stealing the oil from a ship is no mean feat. Oil tankers are enormous, and ships that carry expensive cargo are designed to be difficult to board. Stealing can mean hijacking the original tanker , disabling its tracking devices, taking it to a location where it can’t be spotted, and transferring thousands of heavy barrels to a different vessel that can then be sailed away. Stealing crude also means finding a buyer for it, or else getting involved in the messy and dangerous business of illegal refining. Over the past six months, the price of oil has plunged due to a global oversupply. And for some pirates, it’s just not worth stealing it any more. “With oil at a low bottom price of below $30 per barrel, piracy is no longer such a profitable business as it was when prices hit $106 a barrel a few years ago,” said […]