Maxum Petroleum recently acquired Mid-State Industrial Lubricants Co., which serves coal mines, coal-related businesses and natural gas companies in West Virginias central Appalachia region.
Terms of the transaction, which closed Aug. 7, were not disclosed.
Summersville, W. Va.-based Mid-State supplies industrial lubricants and fuels to commercial and industrial customers. Mid-States employees, including president and majority owner Ed Shelton, will continue in their current roles as part of the expanded Maxum organization.
Mid-State is a Citgo lubricants distributor, said Ryan Secrist, Maxum Petroleum vice president of corporate development. Were not planning to change that, he told Lube Report.
Secrist said Mid-State Industrial complements Maxums Petroleum Products Inc. subsidiary in Charleston, W. Va. PPI services many coal mines in central Appalachia.
Mid-State Industrial Lubricants is based in Summersville, which is maybe 30-40 miles from Charleston, but there are no straight roads in West Virginia so it takes longer to get there, Secrist noted. So really it was adding one of the other strong distributors in the area to grow our presence in the marketplace.
Greenwich, Conn.-based Maxum Petroleum markets and distributes refined petroleum products and services to commercial and industrial customers. At one time it was a wholly-owned subsidiary of SPI Petroleum LLC, an acquisition vehicle formed in 2004 by private equity firms Northwest Capital Appreciation Inc., Waud Capital LLC and RBC Capital Partners (through Cadent Energy Partners) with the goal of consolidating the commercial lubricant and fuel distribution industry.
In January this year, Maxum received a $300 million equity investment from private equity firms Metalmark Capital and Waud Capital Partners to further its consolidation strategy. Secrist explained that the investment also made Metalmark and Waud Capital the primary owners of Maxum Petroleum. Former Maxum owner SPI Petroleum is now a minority shareholder in the company. Were now back to looking at acquisitions again now that weve strengthened our balance sheet, and are looking at opportunities, Secrist said. We have quite a few in the hopper at various stages, and this is the first one weve been able to close since we raised the $300 million.
Including Mid-State, Maxum has completed 12 acquisitions of lubricant and fuel marketers and facilities to date, among them Simons Petroleum, Trevco, Hartney, Pecos (including its General Petroleum and Rainier Petroleum subsidiaries), Canyon State Oil, Petroleum Products and Paulson Oil.