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What a relief it would be to hear Flying J come clean on what it intends to do with Big West refinery.

That’s probably not going to happen, by the way. The company has steadfastly refused to share with the news media its plans for the Rosedale Highway plant.

Will it take some of the $75 million set aside by a bankruptcy judge last week to pay oil suppliers enough money to get the refinery running full steam again? Don’t know.

Will it sell the refinery to an organization not so encumbered with bankruptcy that its key suppliers don’t trust it to pay for new shipments? Couldn’t say.

Will it let the refinery —producer of 2 percent of California’s gasoline and 6 percent of its diesel — sit idle while the company focuses on more pressing concerns in Utah, where Flying J Inc. is headquartered? Good question.

Or, will it keep stringing everyone along, leaving the plant to operate at a minimal level, its suppliers to wonder whether they will once again have a good home for their barrels of crude, and the refinery’s workers to worry daily about their future. Again, beats me.

But if all we can do is sit, watch and wait, here are a few things to look out for, and what they might possibly indicate:

-    Flying J works out an arrangement with Shell Oil Co. to reopen a pipeline that supplies roughly one-fifth of the oil the refinery normally uses. If that happens, other local oil producers may decide to jump in with new deliveries. Even if they don’t get paid soon for debts invoiced prior to the Chap. 11 filing on Dec. 22, they could still earn money on new barrels.

-    The company blows all the $75 mil on vendors more closely involved with its truckstops, which may provide a bigger and more steady flow of cash. That would probably do nothing to help the refinery.

-    The refinery shuts down again, for supposed maintenance or not. That could suggest the company is either unable to secure sufficient oil shipments or that it has given up trying. Given how expensive it is to fire up such a refinery, letting it go idle again could hint that Flying J is throwing in the towel and might be looking for a buyer.

We really haven’t any reason to believe one or the other of these scenarios might come to pass. Again, Flying J simply isn’t telling.

And the company’s silence is too bad, because Bakersfield has a huge stake in what becomes of  Big West. Its fate is closely tied to local gas prices, jobs and the proposed $700 million expansion of the refinery.

So, keep reading!