April 22, 2025 [Bakersfield]- This week’s bankruptcy filing by the owner of the refinery on Rosedale Highway may sound bad — and it is for investors holding shares in the company. But Chapter 11 reorganization is expected to bring improvements that could make the plant run more smoothly.
According to paperwork since Tuesday by locally based Global Clean Energy Holdings Inc., $75 million will be invested to “fine-tune, improve and optimize the efficiency and quality” of the plant’s operations.
As a result, it said, the operation will become more reliable and its production more efficient. As part of that, the refinery’s output — renewable diesel, naphtha, propane, butane and fuel gas — is expected to rise in quality.
There was no clear indication of how much the work will boost production totals, if at all. The company said in December was about 6,000 barrels per day of renewable diesel, or about 40% of the plant’s design capacity.
A spokesperson for Global would not address the construction plans Friday, saying the company was not able to communicate outside public channels.
“As indicated previously, we expect operations to continue as usual throughout our entire enterprise, including in Bakersfield, during the restructuring process,” the spokesperson said by email.
Global has noted that all common shares held by investors will be canceled without cash distributions, and that the company’s stock was delisted Thursday by the OTC Pink Market on which its shares traded publicly.
This week’s bankruptcy documents show Global ran up more than $2.13 billion in debt following a series of disappointments stemming from engineering and construction problems that led to repeated delays and major cost overruns, as well as disagreements between the company and others it was doing business with.
The company tapped to carry out the $75 million in new work is Houston-based CTCI Americas Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of a Taiwanese company that has had a long-running dispute with Global over an engineering, procurement, construction, start-up and testing agreement signed in 2021.
According to one of the bankruptcy documents, the new work will apply to systems including receiving and storage of feedstock, the refinery’s hydrogen plant, its hydroprocessing unit, a gas plant and finished product storage and loading.
It said the work will include technical support such as troubleshooting to identify performance bottlenecks; improvement of throughput, yields and energy use; operational support such as supplying qualified field personnel; and engagement of manpower for plant maintenance.
An industry consultant who has observed the plant’s conversion, Ian Goodman, said by email $75 million won’t cover a big expansion of the on-site hydrogen plant he suspects is limiting production.
Goodman added that the site “continues to have huge assets and possibilities” and that the organizations involved in the project, including a U.S. subsidiary of Swiss-based energy trader Vitol “will figure out ways to make money at Rosedale, including leveraging the logistics and tankage at Rosedale, especially once bankruptcy is completed.”
The bankruptcy case is expected to wrap up this summer.
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