Tulsa World: Firms outbid for terminals

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Firms outbid for terminals
QuikTrip and Magellan had sought SemFuel assets.

By ROD WALTON World Staff Writer
Published: 8/5/2009 2:22 AM
Last Modified: 8/5/2009 4:26 AM

Complete coverage: Read all the stories and documents related to the SemGroup collapse.

The U.S. subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based commodities and energy giant swooped in this week to outbid Tulsa companies QuikTrip Corp. and Magellan Midstream Partners LP for the SemFuel gasoline terminal assets in Glenpool, Tulsa, Kansas, Iowa and Fort Worth.

Noble Americas Corp. offered $65.35 million for all of the SemFuel assets on the bankruptcy auction block. Those parts of SemGroup 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.

QuikTrip had bid $14 million in late June to buy the SemFuel terminal operations in Fort Worth. The move, if successful, would have been the Tulsa convenience store chain's first foray into gasoline storage and marketing.

"We would like to have had it, but we were unsuccessful," QuikTrip spokesman Michael Thornbrugh said Tuesday. "It was a good learning experience for us."

Magellan bid $23 million to buy terminals in El Dorado, Kan.; Des Moines, Iowa; Glenpool; and west Tulsa. The two area sites were close to some of Magellan's other properties and pipelines.

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.

In June, he talked about the assets' logistic attractiveness at Magellan, a growing refined petroleum storer and transporter.

"They are all already connected to our pipeline system," Heine said after Magellan's bid in June. "It fits our portfolio well, and we hope that we're going to be the successful bidder."

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.

The 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.

QuikTrip had been looking at the Fort Worth terminal for a long time, Thornbrugh said. He would not elaborate on whether the Tulsa 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."

The SemFuel bids were submitted by a July 27 deadline, with SemGroup attorneys mulling the offers at Monday's auction. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan L. Shannon could formally approve the Noble Americas offer at an Aug. 13 hearing.

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.

Rod Walton 581-8457
rod.walton@tulsaworld.com By ROD WALTON World Staff Writer

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2curious, Tulsa, OK 74104 (8/5/2009 6:53:07 PM)

Another loss to the Chinese. Crud!

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