By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Feb. 2 -- Big West LLC said its Flying J subsidiary, which filed for reorganizational bankruptcy last year, temporarily is shutting down its Bakersfield, Calif., refinery for lack of cash with which to buy oil.
Flying J, which is based in Ogden, Utah, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Dec. 22. The refinery, which has a 65,000 b/cd capacity, supplies diesel and gasoline to California. The closure will not affect Flying J's refinery in Salt Lake City, Utah, the company said. The Salt Lake refinery has a 30,000 b/cd capacity.
"For now, we will be winding down refining operations at the facility," Fred Greener, Big West executive vice-president, said of the Bakersfield refinery in a Jan. 28 news release. "We hope that this suspension will be short lived, and are working very hard to find a solution that will allow resumption of the operations. We cannot predict when that might occur."
He said Big West contacted the United Steelworkers Local 219 to begin discussions about the future of its contract with union employees at the Bakersfield refinery.
