Valve cover drip?

03 vue 3.0. Oil is dripping onto front manifold. Why is there so much buildup on front surface of cover? Oil does not flow uphill. The manifold is directly below this spot. Could it be oil vapors/condensation somehow collecting on this surface? If PCV was bad would oil seep out a bit around fill port opening?

To ME ?
that looks melted.
Maybe the manifold has a leak.

The air flowing at and over the top of the engine will cause the oil to flow up as it leaks out.

Tester

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Cleaned cover. It’s fine. O-ring for fill tube is rock hard though. As was valve cover gasket. Spark plug wells were full of oil.

Yup. Absolutely possible.
Could be some seepage having been forced out from around the fill cap too. That would be my guess.

O-ring in valve cover is 44mmx36mm. U twist cap and plastic funnel body twists too. So it has 2 leak points. Reminds me of late 80’s GM v6 motors that used o-ring on distributor body. They always leaked at 80k miles