The ongoing auction looks set to deprive Venezuela of its most prized foreign asset. (Archive)
Caracas, August 14, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The court-ordered sale of Venezuelan refiner CITGO to satisfy creditor claims is facing uncertainty with the arrival of new bids before a scheduled final hearing.
According to reports, trading giant Vitol and vulture fund Elliott Management submitted US $8.5 billion and $8.8 billion offers, respectively, in recent days. Court-appointed “Special Master” Robert B. Pincus, charged with overseeing the sale and providing a recommendation, requested that Delaware Judge Leonard P. Stark postpone a sale hearing originally set for August 18.
In late 2022, Stark set in motion the auction of PDV Holding (PDVH), a subsidiary of Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA and CITGO’s parent company, to satisfy a number of creditor claims against Venezuela, mostly stemming from international arbitration awards concerning assets nationalized by the Venezuelan state in the 2000s.
Creditors will be paid on a “first come, first served” basis, with Crystallex ($1.0 billion), Tidewater ($80 million), ConocoPhillips ($1.3 billion) and O-I Glass ($700 million) first on the list. The process was initiated by Canadian miner Crystallex thanks to an “alter ego” ruling which made PDVSA liable for the country’s debts.
With CITGO under the management of the US-backed opposition, subsequent alter ego verdicts allowed other corporations to tag their claims to the Delaware proceedings. Former self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó and associates drew accusations of malfeasance and conflicts of interest that ended up ballooning the company’s liabilities to $20.6 billion.
In July, Pincus recommended a $7.4 billion offer from Dalinar Energy Corporation, a subsidiary of Canadian mining firm Gold Reserve, itself a Delaware claimant owed $1.1 billion. Gold Reserve’s bid combined equity and debt financing from lenders including JP Morgan and TD Bank.
Despite covering 11 of the 15 claims, the proposal drew several objections, particularly due to the unresolved issue of the defaulted PDVSA 2020 bond for which half of CITGO was pledged as collateral. Successive US Treasury protections have barred bondholders from executing collateral.
In addressing the objections, Gold Reserve dismissed the risk posed by the PDVSA 2020 creditors, with the bond’s legality still undergoing litigation in US courts.
However, Pincus could revisit his original recommendation following the disclosure of “unsolicited” bids in recent days. According to Reuters, Vitol submitted an $8.5 billion offer that would cover 13 Delaware claims.
The offer put forward by one of the commodities trader’s subsidiaries has not been fully disclosed, leaving questions on whether it is reliant on outside financing or non-cash considerations. Though Pincus has not confirmed whether the proposal meets all the court’s requirements, its prospects are boosted by reported negotiations of a settlement with PDVSA 2020 bondholders.
In addition, Amber Energy, a subsidiary of vulture fund Elliott Management, likewise put forward a bid worth $8.8 billion in total, with $2.8 billion already set aside for a settlement with PDVSA 2020 bondholders and additional outside claims against CITGO.
Pincus had originally picked a $7.3 billion Elliott Management offer as the auction winner in September 2024, but controversy over the proposal’s sale terms saw the court restart the bidding process. Amber had originally discarded presenting a new bid before the disclosure of its improved proposal by one of the auction creditors, Red Tree Investments.
Gold Reserve expressed criticism over the offers being considered after the bidding period had closed as well as undisclosed specifics of their respective terms. Judge Stark is set to decide on a revised schedule proposed by Pincus in a hearing on Friday.
CITGO’s looming change of ownership is subject to Washington’s approval, though the US Treasury has pledged a “favorable licensing policy.”
For its part, the Maduro government has decried the court-led sale of the Caribbean country’s most valuable foreign asset, valued at around $13 billion, as “the theft of the century” and vowed to challenge the loss of the Houston-based refiner.
CITGO owns refineries in Illinois, Louisiana and Texas with a combined processing capacity of 769,000 barrels per day (bpd). The company’s portfolio also includes a pipeline network and over 4,000 service stations, mostly on the US East Coast.
Edited by José Luis Granados Ceja in Mexico City, Mexico.
