Dec. 22--Flying J Inc., a major oil company whose operations include the Big West refinery on Rosedale Highway, filed for reorganization bankruptcy Monday, citing a plunge in oil prices and the credit squeeze.

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Plans for a $700 million expansion of the Bakersfield refinery approved in October still stand, an official said.

Whether the bankruptcy filing is in indicator of widespread industry troubles remains to be seen. Representatives of other large oil companies operating in Kern County wouldn't specify Monday whether they're also being hard hit by the drop in crude prices, which in recent months have fallen sharply from record highs in July.

Flying J Group, the refinery's parent company based in Ogden, Utah, is one of the country's 20-largest privately held companies, court filings say, with 16,000 employees and sales exceeding $16.2 billion in 2007.

"The company is operating business as usual," said Wendi Kopsick, spokeswoman for Flying J, from the New York offices of public relations firm Kekst and Co.

Initial court hearings are scheduled Tuesday in Delaware's federal district bankruptcy court, where the company will ask for routine permission to pay employees, access bank accounts and continue other day-to-day activities.

Operations included in Monday's filing cover more than 200 travel plazas, the Big West refining arm and the company's Longhorn unit, which operates 700 miles of pipeline in the Texas Gulf Coast.

Flying J travel plazas operate in 41 states and six Canadian provinces.

The plazas, familiar to many highway drivers, feature convenience stores, motels, truck stops and other roadside amenities. The company's overall operations include everything from oil exploration, production and transport to truck-driver services and the retail plazas.

The travel plazas are open and the reorganization might be completed without layoffs, the company said in a release.

The Bakersfield refinery, which operates under subsidiary Big West of California LLC, employs about 200 full time and 150 part-time staffers, Kopsick said. The facility can refine up to 70,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

Gene Cotten, Big West's vice president of refining in Bakersfield, referred calls to the corporate office.

Another spokeswoman, Lin-Hua Wu, said from Ogden the Bakersfield expansion "is integral to the long-term strategy and plans" for the local refinery.

"The company is optimistic that it will be able to generate substantial cash internally to allow it to meet its obligations going forward," Wu said, adding that Flying J "has every intention of continuing to pursue the expansion."

PRICE CRUNCH

J. Phillip Adams, Flying J's chief executive officer, said in court filings the move was necessary due to a short-term cash crunch brought on by the "recent precipitous and rapid decline in oil and gas prices" since September.