MOSCOW (MRC) -- A hearing to finalize Philadelphia Energy Solution’s bankruptcy plan and consummate a sale of the company’s refinery to a real estate developer was pushed back along with a deadline for objections to the deal, reported Reuters with reference to federal court filings.
The plan is now scheduled to go before the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware to be finalized on Feb. 12 instead of Thursday. The deadline for objections was extended two days to Wednesday.
No official reason was given for the rescheduling and PES did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
PES last month entered into an agreement to sell its refinery, the largest and oldest on the East Coast, to Chicago-based Hilco Redevelopment Partners, which is expected to use the site largely for warehousing. Los Angeles developer, Industrial Realty Group, was selected as a backup buyer.
Several groups, including the union that provided hundreds of workers to the plant, have objected to the bankruptcy plan, citing lacking information about how PES would settle all of its debts.
The US Trustee, a bankruptcy watchdog within the Department of Justice, has also objected. The trustee said in a filing PES cannot release itself from its more than USD1 billion in debts and other obligations under the plan because it will be liquidating its assets instead of restructuring or selling its business.
PES shut its refinery and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July following a fire that destroyed a section of its 335,000 barrel-per-day plant near downtown Philadelphia. More than 1,000 full-time and contract workers, many whom are now creditors in the bankruptcy case, were laid off.
One key unresolved issue is who, if anyone, will receive proceeds from up to USD1.25 billion in insurance coverage tied to the blaze.
PES’s unsecured creditors have publicly opposed the sale to Hilco, and union representatives held protests against the deal.
The group is pushing for a sale to Industrial Realty Group, which has been in conversations about leasing part of the site to Phil Rinaldi, the former chief executive of PES who wants to restart the refinery.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,093,260 tonnes in 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments rose from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).
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