No Deal Reached To Move Sunoco Eagle Point Refinery To India, Say Officials
By Mark Abrams
WESTVILLE, N.J. (CBS) -- A federally backed bank has rejected an application by an Indian company for a large loan to buy and dismantle the shuttered Sunoco eagle point refinery in Westville, New Jersey and move it overseas.
The Washington DC-based Export-Import Bank of the United States turned down the loan application of a group calling itself Amerind Petroleum Private Ltd. to pack up and move the refinery equipment and re-assemble it in India.
Phil Cogan, a spokesman for the bank, says the group's application didn't pass a detailed qualification review...
"It's an old refinery as many people know. It was retired because of high operating costs and environmental problems. Also, the group that wanted to sponsor this transaction really lacks the expertise in the bank's opinion to pull off a project finance of this type."
Cogan says the Indian company's chairman had been quoted in earlier Indian media reports as saying that the bank was willing to lend the group some $375 million of the estimated $500 million cost.
Sunoco closed the refinery some two years ago and has been trying to sell the equipment. But a company official is quoted, as saying so far there is no contract in hand to do that.
