Venoco Inc., a Denver-based petroleum company that operates in southern California, said it skipped a $13.7 million interest payment due Tuesday and is in talks with creditors about a restructuring.
The missed payment on unsecured notes paying 8.88 percent interest won’t technically constitute a default unless Venoco fails to make good by March 17.
Venoco said it has enough money to maintain normal oil and gas operations and meet its regular bills. But it is getting squeezed by low oil prices and the inability to get its crude to market.
The firm has had to curtail more than half of its production due to the closure of the Plains All-American pipeline,
It is uncertain when the pipeline will reopen, although officials in Santa Barbara County are allowing more stored oil to move out via truck.
“We are carefully weighing our options to reduce debt, and have had positive discussions with our lenders about the possibility of restructuring the balance sheet to do so,” Venoco CEO Mark DePuy said in a statment.
Venoco was co-founded by Tim Marquez in 1992. He served as the company’s CEO until 2002, when he left the company to found Marquez Energy. Marquez Energy was acquired by Venoco in 2005. In 2012, in a deal
Marquez remains executive chairman of the company. He is best known in Denver for creating, with his wife, Bernadette, a $50 million matching-gift college scholarship program for Denver Public Schools graduates, in 2006 after Venoco made an initial public offering.
