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Impairment | 3 Months Ended
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Mar. 31, 2012
Impairment [Abstract] |
IMPAIRMENT |
3. | IMPAIRMENT
In March 2012, we decided to suspend the operations of the Aruba Refinery by the end of March. Our decision was based on the refinery’s inability to generate positive cash flows on a sustained basis subsequent to its restart in January 2011 and the sensitivity of its profitability to sour crude oil differentials, which narrowed significantly in the fourth quarter of 2011. We considered the use of alternative feedstocks or configuration changes that might improve the refinery’s cash flows and we also considered a temporary or permanent shutdown of the refinery facilities. We ultimately decided to shut down the refinery and to maintain it in a state that would allow for operations to be resumed. On March 28, 2012, we received a non-binding indication of interest from an unrelated interested party to purchase the Aruba Refinery for $350 million, plus working capital as of the closing date, subject to completion of due diligence and further negotiations. The due diligence process is currently ongoing and no final agreement has been reached to sell the refinery. We have accepted this offer, subject to the finalization of the purchase and sale agreement. The Aruba Refinery is classified as “held and used” because all of the accounting criteria required for “held for sale” classification have not been met. Because of our decision to suspend the operations of the Aruba Refinery and the possibility that we may sell the refinery, we evaluated the refinery for potential impairment and concluded that the Aruba Refinery was impaired as of March 31, 2012. As a result, we were required to determine the fair value of the Aruba Refinery and to write down its carrying value to that amount. We determined that the best measure of the refinery’s fair value as of March 31, 2012 was the $350 million offer described above, which was based on the interested party’s specific knowledge of the refinery, experience in the refining and marketing industry, and extensive knowledge of the current economic factors of our business. The carrying value of the Aruba Refinery’s long-lived assets as of March 31, 2012 was $945 million; therefore, we recognized an asset impairment loss of $595 million. There is no certainty that we will sell the refinery to the interested party, or to any other party, and if we ultimately sell the refinery, there is no certainty that we will sell it for $350 million. In addition, should we be unable to sell the refinery, we may have to recognize an additional asset impairment loss.

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- Definition The entire disclosure for the details of the charge against earnings resulting from the aggregate write down of all assets from their carrying value to their fair value. Disclosure may also include a description of the impaired asset and facts and circumstances leading to the impairment, amount of the impairment loss and where the loss is located in the income statement, method(s) for determining fair value, and the segment in which the impaired asset is reported. + References No definition available. + Details
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- Details
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