Noble Americas Corp. offered $65.35 million for all of the SemFuel assets on the bankruptcy auction block, according to a report in the Tulsa World. Those parts of SemGroup [image-nocss] LP's refined petroleum subsidiary also included terminals in Wisconsin and Michigan that were bid on by Combined Locks, Wis.-based U.S. Oil Co., according to reports. The SemFuel assets included facilities in Houston and Bryan, Texas, not sought by the earlier bidders.
"We would like to have had it, but we were unsuccessful," QuikTrip spokesperson Michael Thornbrugh told the newspaper. "It was a good learning experience for us."
Tulsa, Okla.-based QuikTrip had been looking at the Fort Worth terminal for a long time, Thornbrugh said. He would not elaborate on whether the company plans to try for another storage facility but added that the unsuccessful SemFuel bid was worth the effort.
"We learned to put a value in our minds of what a terminal costs. We learned how to evaluate terminals," Thornbrugh said. "It just made a lot of sense. We had a bottom line, and somebody had a bigger bottom line than us."
Magellan Midstream Partners LP, Tulsa, also had bid on some of the properties, offering $23 million to buy terminals in El Dorado, Kan.; Des Moines, Iowa; Glenpool; and west Tulsa, Okla.
Company spokesman Bruce Heine confirmed that Magellan was outbid at the SemFuel auction Monday in New York. He did not make any further comment except to note that Nobles' winning bid still requires approval by U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.
Stamford, Conn.-based Noble Americas Corp. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Noble Group, the international supply chain of industrial, agricultural and energy products. Noble owns mines, ethanol plants and refined petroleum products marketing assets, according to reports.
Wisconsin company U.S. Oil had bid $14.1 million for SemFuel terminal operations in Green Bay, Wis.; Bettendorf, Iowa; and Rogers City, Mich., according to reports. But Nobles' $65.35 million overall bid apparently will beat that offer, as well.
SemGroup, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July 2008 and is now trying to gain creditor approval for a reorganization plan, previously sold off its SemMaterials asphalt unit. The midstream energy company hopes to emerge by the third quarter as a public entity focused on crude oil storage and transportation, according to reports.
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