Here’s a scary report from The Chron concerning the recent armed hijacking of a big rig loaded with Diesel in Huston:

A hijacker made off with a tanker truck just as the driver was topping off the load of diesel fuel, authorities said Tuesday.

The driver was pulling away from a fueling station along Texas 225 about 3 a.m. Monday when a man, possibly armed with a pistol, jumped into the cab, authorities said.

He told the driver to head toward the South Loop and the Gulf Freeway and later switched seats before ordering the driver out of the vehicle, Houston police said.

Other than to confirm the basic details of the case, Houston Police Department officials declined to comment, citing their ongoing investigation.

A trucking industry security expert said actual armed hijackings are rare. Most 18-wheel thefts occur after the truck’s ignition is hot-wired or because the driver left the keys in the cab, said Jim Sutton, director of Washington, D.C.-based Highway Watch, part of the American Trucking Associations.

“It happens, but it is unusual,” Sutton said.

The truck — minus the fuel — will probably be found within the next few days, Sutton said.

“These people were after a commodity,” he said. “It’s probably a lot more profitable for the risk than pulling a bank robbery.”

How much fuel the driver was carrying was unknown. On Tuesday, the average price for a gallon of diesel in Houston was $4.125.

If the truck isn’t found, Sutton said it will probably be cannibalized for parts.

Whoever took the truck probably has some behind the wheel experience with 18-wheelers, Sutton said.

“It takes some skill driving those big tanker trucks,” he said. “If a non-trucker stole (it), there’s a very good chance they would have had an accident within a very short distance.

The locals are operating on the theory that someone wanted to sell the fuel, but with the case a few years ago of the Muslim convert run truck school that ended up being shut down by the F.B.I. this sort of information cannot help but lead one to wonder if there is some more nefarious purpose for this tanker, like ramming it and its flammable cargo into some vulnerable target.

h/t N.T.A.