to the National Oil Cormpanies of Libya and Iran and $100 million in debt to Standard Oil of California. In 1979, Carey sold Carey Energy Corporation, with $550 million in assets, to the Jacksonville, Florida based Charter Company for $4 million in cash (for 20% of the company) and $16 million in Charter convertible preferred stock (worth $45 million), plus a consulting contract for Carey that paid $200,000 per year. Carey Energy's principal assets were a 65% ownership in the Bahamas Refinery (Standard Oil owned the remaining 35%) as well as the New England Petroleum Company. Charter beat out Ashland Oil who were also interested in acquiring Carey Energy. "The deal hinged on an unusual contract with the Libyans. The contract tied the payments that Charter had to make against Carey's outstanding bills to the amount of oil the Libyans supplied. It thus solved the problem that had made it impossible for Carey to continue in business: the refusal of the company's suppliers to provide any more oil on credit." The contract with Libya, plus a substantial increase in refinery profit margins that accompanied the 1979 oil shortage, "enabled Charter to settle all of its debts with Carey's foreign suppliers just four months after it had taken over the company." By 1982, however, the refinery "that once turned crude into cash is now considered a money-losing white elephant" and led to Charter losing much of its value. Charter executives claimed that earnings from other assets acquired from Carey Energy "more than offset the Bahamian losses." Charter filed for bankruptcy protection in late 1984, eventually selling off all of its businesses and purchasing Spelling Entertainment Inc. Commonwealth Oil Refining Company In 1953, Carey helped found the Commonwealth Oil Refining Company in the Puerto Rico under the development program known as Operation Bootstrap. Carey organized Commonwealth with Rear Admiral Andrew F. Carter (former president of Shell Eastern Petroleum Products, Inc. and a senior executive with the Army-Navy Petroleum Board during World War II), Charles W. Saacke (a former executive with the Davison Chemical Company which was acquired by W. R. Grace and Company in 1954), and Fred Gilbert of Carey's New England Petroleum. The company ran a petrochemical plant and $24,500,000 refinery at Ponce. Commonwealth Oil, which processed , was also sold to Charter for $650 million in 1980. In the late 1950s, Carey was involved in a consortium of American companies