Restructured Aegean Marine Petroleum Network has emerged from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy process in the US with a new name.
The fuel and tanker group is now Minerva Bunkering, a fully owned subsidiary of trader Mercuria Energy.
It filed for reorganisation in November.
“We are pleased that Aegean has completed its restructuring, and now as part of Mercuria, is a significantly stronger company with greater supply capabilities and access to liquidity,” said Aegean director Tyler Baron.
“As the new Minerva Bunkering, the company looks forward to capitalising on its enhanced platform and delivering greater value to its customers.
"With IMO 2020 less than a year away, Minerva is uniquely positioned to provide an unparalleled set of solutions to the marine fuel market, leveraging the combination of Mercuria’s global reach, risk-management expertise and trading operations with our extensive physical supply capabilities.”
Mercuria has annual turnover of more than $100bn.
Minerva is thus part of "one of the industry’s most creditworthy counterparties with an expansive supply network", it said.
New chapter begins
Magid Shenouda, global head of trading at Mercuria, said: “Today marks a new chapter for Minerva, as it gains Aegean Marine’s industry-leading team and physical network.
"Minerva was built on the premise of selling fuel to its customers where and when they need it in the most cost-effective way. Now the new Minerva will be able to provide end-to-end service and physically supply fuels in the locations most important to our customers.
“With our extensive network, rigorous transparency and strong balance sheet, we are a dependable partner providing reliable service and high-quality products.”
Aegean reached a global settlement last week with its various creditor groups, including Mercuria, the official committee of unsecured creditors, American Express Travel Related Services and certain holders of its unsecured convertible notes.
It revealed potential fraud at the company last year.
The company said that up to $300m of its assets were funnelled to OilTank Engineering & Consulting after a 2010 deal to build an oil terminal in Fujairah.
And it alleged $200m in accounts receivable were to be written off as non-collectable.
The audit committee said those transactions, with shell companies, were carried out to obscure misappropriations to OilTank.
This story has been amended to reflect that the company audit committee, rather than auditors, alleged transactions to obscure misappropriation.
