When Flying J filed for bankruptcy last month, the fiercely private firm thrust itself under an uncomfortable light, revealing that even high-flying energy companies can succumb to the pressures of collapsing oil prices and tight credit.

"It was the first of a number of small refiners that we will see on the radar this year. I don't think it will be the last bankruptcy," said Tom Kloza, publisher and chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service.

Flying J's predicament illustrates the pickle many oil companies find themselves in today. After several years of strong profits capped by record run-ups in gasoline and diesel prices in 2008, the bottom has fallen out of the energy market because of weak demand and the global recession.

To call Flying J an oil company is like saying Apple is only about computers. Over its 40-year life, the company's holdings have come to resemble a conglomerate. Its numerous subsidiaries have carved footholds in an array of businesses with petroleum at their base.

Besides being one of the largest truck stop operators in the country -- it has more than 250 travel centers in 41 states and Canada -- Flying J also is an oil and gas production company. The company has ownership interests in 200 wells, mostly in Utah's Uinta Basin and the Williston Basin in eastern Montana.

Its Longhorn Pipeline subsidiary moves up to 80,000 barrels a day of gasoline and diesel through a company-owned pipeline running from Houston to El Paso, where Flying J owns a terminal able to store more than 1 million barrels.

Subsidiaries Big West Oil and Big West of California run refineries in North Salt Lake and Bakersfield, Calif., with an aggregate capacity of 100,000 barrels a day. The Bakersfield refinery supplies 6 percent of California's diesel and 2 percent of its gas.

Other subsidiaries haul diesel, sell trucks, peddle insurance, operate an online retail store and develop land. A communications unit claims to be the largest WiFi Internet provider in the trucking industry.

"They are different from many other (oil) companies because they are privately held. That's getting to be the exception rather than the norm in the industry," said Lee Peacock, president of the Utah Petroleum Association.

The company's voluntary Chapter 11 filing in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware on Dec. 22 shed light on its operations, which have been largely shielded from public view for years. The company said it raked in $16.2 billion in revenue in 2007 -- $2 billion more than what Forbes magazine estimated in November, when it placed Flying J at No. 16 on its list of the biggest private companies in the country.

CEO J. Phillip Adams, has worked at Flying J for more than 28 years. The company has grown rapidly under his leadership. Revenues have increased more than 800 percent in the past decade.

At the same time, the company's rank on the Forbes list has climbed steadily, rising from No. 103 in 1998 and breaking into the top 20 in 2006, where it has remained. The company is in the same league as agribusiness giant Cargill, Chrysler and Fidelity Investments.

The bankruptcy affects Flying J and its Big West refining and Longhorn pipeline subsidiaries. None of the company's other subsidiaries and affiliates were touched.

In a rare interview of less than 10 minutes after lawyers filed Flying J's petition for bankruptcy, CEO Adams conceded that the decision was distressing, but unavoidable.

He blamed the company's liquidity crisis on an "unprecedented" combination of volatile oil prices, which plunged 70 percent from a record high of $147 a barrel in July, and a credit squeeze by its lenders.

The financial emergency sprang from loans secured with oil, said Adams, a Utah State University grad. As crude prices fell, Flying J was forced to write down the value of the oil. The decline, which the company called "precipitous," triggered from some lenders margin calls -- essentially a call to repay a loan, Adams said.

Adams, who has declined requests for further interviews, said Big West defaulted on a $200 million loan furnished by a group led by Bank of America on Dec. 19. A day later, Longhorn Pipeline defaulted on a $120 million loan.

The company could have avoided or softened the crisis by selling some of its nonoil assets if crude prices hadn't declined as much or as fast as they did, Adams said.

"In this environment, we didn't have time to get that done."

The company's bankruptcy rippled through the country. A list of creditors on file at the Delaware court runs to 491 pages, with about 30 creditors per page.

The bankruptcy surprised Paul May, office administrator for A-C Electric Inc., a Salt Lake City contractor that has provided maintenance services for Flying J's refinery in North Salt Lake for 15 years.

"I think it's sad, but they are a great customer of ours. They treated us well at every turn and we are not concerned at this time about their ability to make it right with us," May said.

May wouldn't say how much Flying J owes A-C. The two companies continue to work together, he said.

Zions Bancorp is Flying J's biggest creditor. Court records show Flying J owes the Salt Lake-based regional bank $85 million.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect Zions to report a loss when the bank releases its fourth-quarter results on Jan. 26, partly as a result of the bankruptcy.

pbeebe@sltrib.com