"The choice was to make [each of] the 400 dealers file for bankruptcy or have Bulk Petroleum file for bankruptcy," he said. The [image-nocss] first option would have affected between 400 and 500 families that own the gas stations. It was better for Bulk Petroleum to take the hit, he said.
Bulk Petroleum filed for protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. It is part of the conglomerate, Dhaliwal Enterprises Inc., and listed between $50 million and $100 million in assets and liabilities.
The company's largest unsecured creditors include CITGO Petroleum Corp., which is owed $4.96 million, and Marathon Ashland LLC, which is owed $3.46 million, according to court filings.
A more detailed accounting of the company's finances will be filed with the court by mid-March, Michael Dunn, one of Bulk Petroleum's attorneys, told The Milwaukee Sentinel last week.
Several real estate holding companies affiliated with Bulk Petroleum also filed for Chapter 11 protection, said the report. Those companies own gas stations in Wisconsin, Illinois and other states, which are then leased to individual operators, said Dunn. Bulk Petroleum guaranteed the debts of those companies, he added.
Last year's record-setting spike in oil prices hurt Bulk Petroleum, Dunn said, by making it more expensive for the company to buy gasoline. Some, but not all, of those higher prices could be passed on to the station operators supplied by Bulk Petroleum, he said.
The collapse in oil prices that started last fall brought some relief to Bulk Petroleum, but not enough to prevent the Chapter 11 filing, Dunn said. (Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage.)
Dhaliwal is the richest non-resident-Indian (NRI) Sikh, according to the Sikh News Network. He was born in Rakhra, Punjab, India, in 1951, and he graduated from Government College, Nabha, Punjab, in 1972 when he also immigrated to Milwaukee to study industrial engineering at Marquette University.
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