H & H Oil to Shut Down Enhanced Recycling Unit

Santa Paula-based H & H Oil Tool Co. plans to suspend a year-old project for recycling storage tank sludge into environmentally safe components. The company will take a pretax charge of $1 million for shutting down its Enhanced Oil Recycling Inc. unit.

Robert K. Foote, H & H’s vice president and chief financial officer, said only three of the parent firm’s 163 employees will be laid off as a result of the shutdown. He said the Enhanced Oil unit, which converts oil-contaminated sludge to water, solids and recyclable oil, will be closed by the end of the month.

“We’re convinced the process has merit and we’re retaining our worldwide rights,” he said. “We may try to revive it in the future with outside financial and technical help.”

Henry H. Rushing, H & H’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement announcing the closure that “some of the incoming materials have been too diverse and/or complex to consistently process profitably.”

H & H’s primary business is renting equipment to oil, gas and geothermal companies throughout the Western United States.

Aside from the Enhanced Oil write-down and research and development costs, H & H’s operations were profitable in the final quarter of 1992, Foote said. He said the final financial results will be announced in March.