© Supplied by Altrad Group 
A trade union has called for immediate government intervention after the owner of the Lindsay oil refinery on the Humber was forced into liquidation putting hundreds of jobs at risk.
The UK’s Official Receiver has confirmed it has been appointed to sell assets after a winding up order was filed against Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery Limited, Prax Storage Lindsey Limited and Prax Terminals Killingholme Limited.
The firms are owned by Prax Group parent company, State Oil Group, which has also fallen into administration.
State Oil, which has 182 employees, will be handled by Teneo Financial Advisory along with other business entities in administration including Prax Treasury Limited, Prax Petroleum Limited, Harvest Energy Limited and Harvest Energy Aviation Limited, part of the Prax Group’s wholesale operations.
State Oil and Prax were founded by husband and wife team, Sanjeev and Arani Kumar Soosaipillai, who first struck a deal to acquire the refinery on the Humber from TotalEnergies in 2020.
© Supplied by DCTUnite the Union, which represents workers at the Prax refinery in North Lincolnshire, demanded the government intervene immediately to protect workers, oil supplies and the local community.
It is thought the facility employs 440 people.
Other businesses within the wider Prax Group include the Shetland gas plant and the Greater Laggan oil and gas fields West of Shetland which Prax agreed to buy from TotalEnergies in 2024, as well as Hurricane Energy which it acquired in a deal worth £250 million in 2023. Administrators said these would likely be put up for sale.
Teneo said it will now “urgently assess” the position of the company, and that parts of the business outside of the insolvency process will be “top priority”.
These include petrol stations under the Harvest Energies, Total Energies and Breeze brands in the UK and the OIL! brand in Europe, logistics operator Axis Logistics and Prax’s upstream business, formerly Hurricane Energy.
It added there are “no plans for redundancies at this stage”.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The Lindsey oil refinery is strategically important, and the government must intervene immediately to protect workers and fuel supplies.
“Unite has constantly warned the government that its policies have placed the oil and industry on a cliff edge. It has failed to act and instead put its fingers in its ears.
“The government needs a short-term strategy to keep Lindsey operating and a sustainable long-term plan to fully protect all oil and gas workers.”
Prax Group was founded in 1999 by the Kumar Soosaipillais with the purchase of their first retail petrol station.
Teneo senior managing director and joint administrator Clare Boardman said: “We appreciate that this is a very difficult and uncertain time for the employees and everyone involved and we will be on site to support them during this challenging period.
“We will be considering all options for the group, including the prospect of a sale for the group’s upstream business and retail operations in the UK and Europe, all of which remain outside of insolvency.”
Following an application made by the Official Receiver, the court has also appointed Matthew Callaghan, Andrew Johnson, Joanne Hewitt-Schembri and Samuel Ballinger of FTI Consulting as special managers of the companies and will assist with the liquidations.
