Hays Daily News
Extreme cold the past week probably played a role Thursday evening in the fire that burned an oil tank battery to the ground a few miles southwest of Hays.
With single-digit temperatures through much of last week, oil producers say the bitter cold is playing havoc with oil field equipment, forcing them to shut down some operations until warmer weather.
“We think we had some moisture that froze up on a fitting on one of our oil stock tanks, and that’s what sprung our oil leak,” said Chris Toy, vice president for Wichita-based Knighton Oil Inc., an independent oil and gas producer that operates the Staab lease about 6 miles south of Hays and a quarter-mile east of US-183 highway on Grants Villa Road.