Venezuela denounces US-ordered ‘forced sale’ of oil company Citgo

Delcy Rodriguez, the vice president and minister of petroleum of Venezuela, has criticized a US court’s decision to authorize the “fraudulent” and “forced” sale of Citgo, a Venezuelan oil company, in the US to pay off billions of dollars in debts.

In a statement read on state television about the sale, which the Venezuelan government has always opposed, Rodriguez stated, “We firmly reject the decision taken in the judicial process.”

Last week, Delaware Judge Leonard Stark ordered the sale of Citgo’s parent company to $ 5.9 billion-dollar affiliate Amber Energy. According to a press release from Elliott Investment Management, the court order was “backed by a group of strategic US energy investors.”

According to claims that Citgo, a state-owned subsidiary of Venezuela’s PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela, SA), it owes more than $ 20 billion to creditors, this is in response to the country’s previously prosperous oil industry’s wider financial woes brought on by US sanctions.

The Mexican company Crystallex is one of the company’s creditors, according to another US court, who was owed $1.2 billion by Venezuela’s government in 2019 as a result of Caracas’s seizure and nationalization of the Las Cristinas mine, which is a rich source of gold, diamonds, iron, and other minerals.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claims that the US’s recent military expansion in the Caribbean Sea is intended to seize Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, which is estimated to be 303 billion barrels by 2023, but it exported only $4.05 billion worth of crude oil in 2023, which is significantly lower than that of other significant oil-producing nations, in part as a result of US sanctions placed on it during US President Donald Trump’s first term.

Maduro urged other Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members last week to assist their nation in retaliating against “growing and illegal threats” made by the US and its president.

However, Global Policy Institute president Paolo von Schirach expressed doubts about Venezuela’s claim gaining a lot of “within OPEC itself.”

The Trump administration has claimed that drug trafficking is the main focus of its military exercises there.

Venezuela’s oil exports to the United States have historically been among the highest, but sales sharply decreased after Hugo Chavez’ election as president in 1998.

Venezuela then moved its exports to nations like China, India, and Cuba after being subject to stringent sanctions under the first Trump administration.

US multinational Chevron was granted a limited oil production licence after the former US President’s administration eased trade tensions, before sanctions were tightened once more at the start of the second Trump administration in March of this year.