<img src=" http://www.joplinglobeonline.com/images/zope/business.gif " Border=0> 11:42 a.m. Oil company that left area stations dry files for bankruptcy

February 09, 2009 12:40 pm

— Crescent Oil Company Inc., a fuel supplier for at least six Midwest states, has filed for bankruptcy.
The Independence, Kan.-based firm filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors Saturday.
Crescent’s bankruptcy filing says the company has between $50 million and $100 million in estimated assets and a like amount of estimated liabilities.
Its largest unsecured creditors included fuel companies Shell/Equilon and Conoco-Phillips and the Kansas Department of Revenue’s Motor Fuel Tax Section.
The bankruptcy comes after several retailers in the Midwest last week reported not receiving regularly scheduled deliveries of fuel. Gas outlets in Joplin, Neosho and Asbury in Missouri, and Pittsburg, Frontenac and Weir in Kansas were among those affected by absent deliveries from Crescent Oil.
Crescent distributes fuel to more than 340 locations in Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Louisiana. The company is a wholesale supplier of Conoco-Phillips, Shell, Valero and British Petroleum gasoline.