Lindsey oil refinery owner Prax Group crashes into insolvency

The proprietor of the Lindsey lipid refinery has crashed into insolvency, putting hundreds of jobs astatine hazard astatine the vigor conglomerate down the Lincolnshire site.

Sky News has learnt that State Oil, the genitor institution of Prax Group, which has oilfield interests successful the Shetlands and owns astir 200 petrol stations, has been forced to telephone successful administrators amid mounting losses astatine the refinery.

Oil manufacture sources said an announcement was expected aboriginal connected Monday.

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One of the sources said the Official Receiver had appointed FTI Consulting to enactment arsenic peculiar manager for the Lindsey facility, with Teneo hired arsenic head for the remainder of the group.

About 180 radical enactment astatine State Oil Ltd, Prax Group's genitor entity, portion astir 440 much are employed astatine the Prax Lindsey Refinery.

The remainder of the radical is understood to employment hundreds much people.

Prax Group is owned by Sanjeev Kumar Soosaipillai, who besides acts arsenic its president and main executive, according to its website.

The situation astatine the Lindsey refinery, which is located connected a 500-acre tract 5 miles from the Humber Estuary, echoes that astatine Britain's dwindling fig of lipid refineries.

According to the company, the tract has an yearly accumulation capableness of 5.4 cardinal tonnes, processing much than 20 antithetic types of crude including petrol, diesel, bitumen, substance lipid and aviation fuels.

The refinery, which was bought from France's Total successful 2020, is understood to person go a increasing drain connected currency crossed the wider Prax Group, with which it has cross-guarantees.

Some of the company's assets, including the petrol stations and oilfields, are not themselves successful medication but volition beryllium the taxable of insolvency practitioners' decisions astir their aboriginal ownership.

It was unclear connected Monday greeting whether bidders would measurement successful to salvage immoderate of the company's assets, though manufacture executives judge determination are apt to beryllium buyers for galore of its substance retailing and oilfield assets.

Prax Group besides bought its West of Shetland lipid assets from Total aft a woody struck past year.

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In a connection issued to Sky News, Teneo said it would "urgently measure the presumption of the institution and the wholesale operations".

"A cardinal precedence is to found the imaginable for subsidiaries of the institution that stay extracurricular of immoderate insolvency process, including retail operations nether the Harvest Energies, Total Energies and Breeze brands successful the UK and the OIL! Brand successful Europe, Logistics relation Axis Logistics and Prax's upstream business, formerly Hurricane Energy.

"There are nary plans for redundancies astatine this stage."

Prax Group could not beryllium reached for comment, portion FTI Consulting and the Official Receiver person each been contacted for comment.