The bankruptcy judge has agreed to sell $ 62 million to the Jamaican company Limetree Bay for sale by Reuters

Author: Laura Sanicola

(Reuters) – A U.S. bankruptcy judge on Tuesday approved the sale of the Limetree Bay refinery for $ 62 million to a Jamaican oil storage company that plans to restart the refinery.

Private equity investors put $ 4.1 billion to revitalize the US Virgin Islands old facility, which closed at https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/limetree-bay-refinery-shut-due-severe-financial-constraints- 2021- 06-21 US environmental regulators after a failure earlier this year.

West Indies Petroleum, along with Port Hamilton Refining and Transportation, was named the winning bidder on Saturday after Limetree held a second auction over the weekend.

If the company does not complete the sale in January, the refinery in St. Croix Energy LLLP can be bought by a substitute bidder, which raised its bid from $ 20 million to $ 57 million last weekend.

At the request of the refinery, Judge David Jones reopened the auction in early December because the CEO of West Indies Petroleum had a medical emergency prior to the first auction. St. Croix Energy was opposed to the second auction.

“This was the first circumstance I could find when I reopened an auction for any reason, and today’s conclusion was that it was the right decision,” Jones said Tuesday.

“Issues that could have been a bit obscure are now open to the public for all to see,” he added.

West Indies Petroleum and St. Croix Energy wants to restart the refinery, which is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice after releasing hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide that were restarted in early 2021. When Croix’s neighbors became ill.

The Environmental Protection Agency filed a limited objection on Sunday that West Indies Petroleum had imposed an environmental liability in the refinery permit decree to establish the “language of the sales order.”

The United States also sued Limetree Bay in July under a Clean Air Act, which included requiring the refinery to “eliminate immediate and significant risks to human health, welfare and the environment before refining operations resumed.”