Vertex Energy, Inc.'s restructuring is complete: the Second Amended Joint Chapter 11 Plan was confirmed on December 20, 2024 and became effective on January 21, 2025, converting the formerly NASDAQ-listed refining company into a privately held enterprise owned by BlackRock Financial Management, Highbridge Capital Management, Whitebox Advisors, and CrowdOut Capital. The case traveled from voluntary petitionDkt. 1 to effectiveness in roughly four months, the product of a pre-arranged filing under a Restructuring Support Agreement backed by 100% of the company's term loan lenders.
The Houston-based energy transition company operated a 91,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Mobile, Alabama, used motor oil re-refining assets, and a renewable diesel unit that drove the distress. After acquiring the Mobile refinery from Shell in 2022, Vertex converted a hydrocracker to renewable diesel service in mid-2023, but the unit reached only about 4,000 barrels per day in the first quarter of 2024 against design expectations, while execution problems and hydrogen-facility delays produced cost overruns. Those shortfalls, combined with deteriorating crack spreads, a surplus of low-emission biofuels, and an estimated $72.3 million in Renewable Fuel Standard compliance obligations, overwhelmed a balance sheet carrying roughly $422.5 million in prepetition funded debt. Per the Declaration of Chief Restructuring Officer R. Seth BullockDkt. 18, that structure centered on a $271.9 million first-lien term loan facility administered by Cantor Fitzgerald and a $111.2 million intermediation facility with Macquarie North America, both maturing April 1, 2025.
To stabilize liquidity after filing, the debtors obtained combined debtor-in-possession financing and cash-collateral authority through an interim and then final order, which authorized approximately $80 million of new-money DIP loans alongside use of cash collateral and a roughly $200 million roll-up of prepetition secured debt. The debtors then ran the dual-track process contemplated in the RSA — a potential asset sale or standalone recapitalization — and moved toward a consensual plan. After filing their disclosure statement and plan in November 2024, the Order Confirming the Second Amended Joint Chapter 11 PlanDkt. 578 was entered on December 20, 2024, with the effective date following on January 21, 2025.
With the plan effective, the case is in administrative wind-down. Post-effective-date activity has focused on lease and contract housekeeping, including an order extending the time to assume or reject unexpired leases and executory contractsDkt. 497 and an order approving rejection of certain executory contractsDkt. 495. Ownership of the Mobile refinery complex and downstream assets passed to the former term loan lenders, and the renewable diesel unit was converted back to conventional refining service in October 2024, returning the core asset to its historical configuration.
