Husband-and-Wife Team’s Bold Foray Into Oil Refining Ends Badly

When the French oil major TotalEnergies SE was struggling to find a buyer for the Lindsey oil refinery in England back in 2020, an unlikely bidder rode to the rescue: a husband-and-wife team with no track record in refining. Their foray into the industry ended in catastrophic failure this week.

The UK announced a liquidation order for the facility’s owner, Prax Lindsey Oil Refinery Ltd., on Monday, leaving the country’s Insolvency Service racing to save the site. The process blindsided everyone from the government to staff to the firms who ferry the plant’s fuel across the country in trucks. Another to be surprised was commodities giant Glencore Plc, which supplied it with crude oil.