After Bankruptcy, Oil Company Breitburn Exiting Los Angeles

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Fresh off exiting bankruptcy, one of the successor companies to the former Breitburn Energy Partners oil company has filed notice with the state that it intends to exit Los Angeles in July, laying off 51 employees.

In a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification letter to the state Employment Development Department dated May 3, Breitburn Management Co. announced it intends to lay off 51 employees starting July 6 at its downtown Los Angeles office as the company consolidates to its Houston office.

That would mark the final Los Angeles act for an oil company launched in 1988 by one-time Stanford University roommates and then business partners Halbert Washburn and Randy Breitenbach. The company, which launched as as Breitburn Energy Corp., eventually became the Breitburn Energy Partners master limited partnership. That partnership filed for bankruptcy in May 2016 after a 2014 deal left it saddled with $2 billion in debt just before oil prices collapsed.

The current entity that emerged from bankruptcy, Breitburn Management, also referred to as Breitburn Operating LP, is a subsidiary of Maverick Natural Resources. Mavierick is majority-owned by EIG Global Energy Partners, a Washington D.C. energy investment firm that assumed a stake worth $1 billion in Breitburn in March 2015 and was one of the largest creditors of the company after it filed for bankruptcy a year later.

Under the bankruptcy reorganization plan confirmed in March by U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, the former Breitburn was to be split into two separate companies: One containing holdings in the prime oil producing West Texas Permian Basin and the other containing holdings in other locations, including the northern Midwest, the Rocky Mountains and California.

So far, though, on the Breitburn Operating/Maverick Natural Resources website, all the former Breitburn Energy Partners holdings are listed, which would indicate the split has yet to be finalized. A call to Breitburn Operating LP was not returned.

Economy, education, energy and transportation reporter Howard Fine can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @howardafine.

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