May 17, 2012:

LONDON –  Petroplus Holdings AG's (PPHN.EB) Coryton refinery in England is operating as usual after a tolling agreement that kept the facility running after the company's insolvency ended last night, a Unite labor union representative said Thursday. A tanker with crude for the 220,000-barrel-a-day refinery is coming in Thursday, said Unite regional industrial organizer Russ Ball. "There are some solid negotiations going on with different parties [bidding for the refinery]," he said.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the administrator of Petroplus's U.K. subsidiaries, wasn't immediately available to comment. Steven Pearson, a joint administrator and partner at PWC, said earlier this month that closure of the facility remained one of the options--along with selling, refinancing or restructuring.

Coryton, the only one out of five Petroplus refineries that continued operating after the company lost access to all its credit lines and then filed for insolvency in January, employs around 850 people.

By Dow Jones Newswires