A U.S. federal court has set January 22, 2024, as the start of the first bidding round for creditors and claimants against Venezuela’s oil asset appropriation and debts owed by Venezuela’s U.S.-based refiner Citgo, Reuters reports, citing court documents. The auction of shares of Citgo Petroleum’s parent company PDV Holding will be launched later this month and is expected to take one year.
It has plants in Texas, Louisiana, and Illinois, along with pipelines and a gasoline distribution network that supplies 4,200 outlets in the United States. First in line, when the court-ordered share sale takes place, would be Canadian Crystallex. The miner was the first company to make a claim against PDVSA after Venezuela nationalized a gold mine it operated in the country. An arbitration court awarded Crystallex $1.4 billion in damages several years ago and the company agreed to the sum.