March 20 - Standard & Poor's Ratings Services today assigned its 'B+' (one notch higher than the corporate credit rating) issue-level rating to Alon USA Energy Inc.'s proposed $700 million term loan due 2018. We assigned a '2' recovery rating to this debt, indicating our expectation of substantial (70% to 90%) recovery in a payment default. The 'B+' issue rating incorporates our expectation that the company will use the proceeds from the proposed loan to repay approximately $425 million