May 22, 2012:

The UK refinery Coryton, formerly owned by the now-bankrupt Petroplus, has stopped taking in crude supplies as a unit at the plant is damaged, a union representative said on Tuesday. The news raised fresh concerns about its future and that of 900 jobs, as administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) looks to sell the plant after the Swiss-based owner went bankrupt at the start of the year. Just one bidder is thought to be still in the running to buy the plant. Russ Ball, regional representative of the Unite union, said a tanker was sitting outside the terminal, unable to discharge crude.

He said the outage, which started last week, would not have a serious impact on negotiations by PwC to sell the plant. "It's a glitch. It's unfortunate timing, but it's not a major catastrophe." He said a piece of equipment regulating steam pressure had broken last week and was being repaired. He added it was unclear whether the plant had completely stopped processing crude, or was partially running. An agreement by Morgan Stanley and private equity group KKR to supply the plant with crude expired last week, but Ball said it was likely that the agreement had been rolled forward on a weekly or monthly basis. He added that in April it netted the consortium around $40 million.

By Reuters