Creditors of STX Offshore & Shipbuilding have decided to reduce their emergency liquidity support for the ailing shipbuilder from 300 billion won ($266 million) to 250 billion won, displaying skepticism over the firm’s recovery.

The company’s main creditor Korea Development Bank recently sent out a notice to eight other creditors, demanding that they agree to the altered liquidity plan, according to officials on Monday.

STX Offshore & Shipbuilding had originally requested a total of 400 billion won from the banking groups, but KDB chose to first provide 250 billion won and hold the remainder until after the due diligence results are released.

The creditors are also to decide by Tuesday on whether to provide cash to the struggling shipbuilder at all. In the worst case, STX Offshore & Shipbuilding will have to file for court receivership, just as its shipping affiliate STX Pan Ocean did last Friday.

The collapse of the two subsidiaries has inflicted visible damage on the overall STX Group as they accounted for some 70 percent of the conglomerate’s total sales.

Local banks, concerned over the group’s massive debts and its resistance to restructuring, have been reluctant to step in. However, they also have been under pressure from the financial regulator to provide liquidity to STX Group, to stop the influential conglomerate from collapsing and thus sparking a chain reaction of bankruptcies of their subcontractors.

STX Group, the nation’s 13th-largest conglomerate, has been struggling from liquidity shortages and soaring debts over the past few years amid the industry’s prolonged slump, further exacerbated by the global economic slowdown and the eurozone debt crisis.

STX Group had a combined 2.86 trillion won in corporate debt to be paid out by 2015, according to NICE Investors Service, a local credit appraiser. Out of such debt, the group has 580 billion won in debt that matures this year and 1.33 trillion won in 2014.

Creditors are even considering seizing the assets of chairman Kang Duk-soo, who said that he was “ready to do whatever it takes (to normalize the group) and put up with any difficulties.”

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)