Oil supplier claims to have lost more than half a million dollars upon delivery

An oil supplier claims ExxonMobil refuses to pay it more than $500,000 for oil it supplied to the corporation.

Crescent Terminals filed a lawsuit March 27 in Jefferson County District Court against ExxonMobil Oil Corp.

In its complaint, Crescent alleges it delivered 77,011.24 barrels of oil to ExxonMobil on Aug. 2. Beforehand, the two companies had entered into a contract in which Crescent agreed to deliver the materials, and ExxonMobil would pay for them at a later date.

However, when Exxon took a sample of the oil to check for water content, an automatic inline sampler revealed that more than 16 percent of the oil contained water, according to the complaint. In turn, ExxonMobil refused to pay for 41,489.03 barrels of oil, the suit states.

Again, when Crescent attempted to deliver a second batch of oil, ExxonMobil refused to pay for 1,885.42 barrels of oil due to an automatic inline sampler reading, the complaint says.

Crescent claims it lost $589,008.07 from the first batch of delivered oil and $199,032.85 from the second.

Crescent contends that it deserves the agreed-upon amount for the oil it delivered and insists that the automatic inline sampler was incorrect in its reading.

“These results do not correspond to the water content analysis performed on the oil before it was discharged from the barge, or after it was loaded into Sun Oil Tank,” the suit states. “Upon information and belief, the automatic inline sampler’s reservoir was not properly cleaned before taking the sample, leading to an erroneous result.”

In its complaint, Crescent alleges breach of contract against ExxonMobil.

Crescent is seeking unspecified damages, plus attorney’s fees, costs, pre- and post-judgment interest and other general and special relief the court deems just.

Paxton N. Crew of The Crew Law Firm in League City will be representing it.

The case has been assigned to Judge Milton Shuffield, 136^th District Court.

Case No. D194-189