Dozens of companies have rushed in recent weeks to obtain data and join a U.S. court-ordered auction of shares in a parent of Houston-based oil refiner Citgo Petroleum, Venezuela’s foreign crown jewel, according to people familiar with the matter, as a first-round bidding is set to close on Monday.
Several dozen groups, including investors, oil and gas companies, refiners and former energy executives, have requested information compiled by Evercore Group, the investment bank overseeing marketing efforts, the people said.
“There is a very good level of interest,” a person with knowledge of the process said. “There are multiple pockets of capital” looking at the company and its assets.
Canadian miner Crystallex, which first brought the case before the Delaware court in 2017, U.S. oil producer ConocoPhillips COP.Nand units of Tidewater TDW.N were given priority by the court for cashing any proceeds from the sale.
Representatives from Crystallex and the boards overseeing Citgo did not reply to requests for comment. ConocoPhillips and Citgo declined to comment.
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Citgo PDVSAC.UL operates a 807,000-barrel-per-day oil refining network, owns interests in pipelines and terminals, and supplies fuel to 4,200 independent gasoline outlets in the U.S.
The seventh-largest U.S. refiner reported a $1.9 billion profit for the first nine months of last year.
But it has not paid any dividends to Venezuela since 2019, when Citgo severed ties with PDVSA following U.S. sanctions designed to curb oil revenues to socialist President Nicolas Maduro and support the nation’s transition government. U.S. District Court filing on Friday accepted claims by 17 groups, including units of O-I GlassOI.N, Tidewater, Koch Industries, Pharo, Red Tree Investments and Contrarian Capital, to receive proceeds from any auction. Any awards will require U.S. Treasury approval.
“Genuine interest will be quite low given the political and legal risks,” said Matthew Blair, head of refining research at Perella Weinberg Partners’ TPH&Co. “If they break it apart and parties can bid on individual assets, then interest will definitely pick up.”
Boards overseeing Citgo continue to try and settle one or more of the claims against Venezuela ahead of the auction, one of the boards said earlier this month, a move that has been tangled by U.S. protections preventing transactions involving the refiner and a secretive process that has kept details of the appraised value and bidders out of court records.
“The board, advised by its legal team and institutions, will analyze the current circumstances and will apply a proper legal strategy to continue protecting PDVSA’s U.S. assets,” it said in a release.
