Creditors of bankrupt Philadelphia Energy Solutions are opposing the sale of its oil refinery to Hilco Redevelopment Partners, saying another developer made a more lucrative bid for the site, Reuters reported. Industrial Realty Group submitted a bid of $265 million during an auction last week to sell the idled refinery site, $25 million more than Hilco’s bid, according to filings by law firm Brown Rudnick LLP in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The refiner announced on Wednesday that it agreed to sell its 335,000 barrel-per-day refinery, the largest and oldest on the U.S. East Coast, to Chicago-based real estate developer Hilco, naming Industrial Realty Group as a back-up bidder. PES’s unsecured creditors, which include companies that had supplied contract work to PES, as well as workers’ unions employed by the refinery, have pushed for a buyer that would restart the complex. Hilco’s proposal for the more-than 1,300-acre (530-hectare) site would result in a permanent shutdown of the plant, Brown Rudnick said, leaving those contractors and union members out of work.
