The move by Rhone Midstream Holldings LLC also will keep 77 employees in Tulsa and retain the research and branding work at SemMaterials’ south Tulsa campus.

Rhone Midstream Holdings is affiliated with SemGroup investor Thane Ritchie. His Ritchie Capital Management owns 25 percent of the Tulsa-based oil and gas storage and transport firm.

The Ritchie group also includes former SemMaterials president Frank Panzer. Panzer led the asphalt unit for three years before his removal in the wake of SemGroup’s bankruptcy filing on July 22, 2008.

Delaware Federal Judge Brendan L. Shannon’s decision allows Rhone to buy such patented SemMaterials technologies as its NovaChip asphalt, Strata crack-relief road system and RoadArmor chip seal, among other brands. The transaction could be finalized by Friday.

Friday also is the deadline for SemGroup’s exclusive right to file its own reorganization plan. The company has hinted that it may emerge from bankruptcy as a publicly traded entity focused on the SemCrude oil business, according to reports.

Rhone also will assume SemMaterials’ lease on its campus at 6502 S. Yale Ave.

SemGroup earlier this year announced it would sell or wind down all of its SemMaterials assets, claiming that the unit was losing $15 million per month. Part of the SemMaterials assets were transferred to publicly traded SemGroup Energy Partners, while