Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Thursday accused the U.S. administration of “plundering” Citgo, a U.S.-based refining company owned by Venezuelan oil giant PDVSA.
A U.S. state court in Delaware has ruled that shares in Citgo, a Houston, Texas-based gasoline refiner and distributor and subsidiary of PDVSA, can be sold to pay off its creditors, U.S. financial regulators approved Monday. “What Joe Biden’s administration is doing is one of the thefts, one of the greatest plunders ever committed against a nation in the world and we reject it,” Maduro said in Caracas.
On Wednesday, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez had already challenged this procedure and accused Washington of having given the green light. Maduro’s re-election in 2018 had not been recognized by Washington, which considers the election results “fraudulent.” The opponent Jean Guaido was then considered by the United States as de facto president until the end of 2022 when the divided Venezuelan opposition ended the “interim government” of Mr. Guaido.
At the initiative of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, some 20 countries meeting in Colombia at the end of April in an attempt to restart dialogue with Venezuela, offered the prospect of easing sanctions if its government committed to holding elections in 2024 with guarantees for the opposition. Maduro said the case against Citgo was an attempt to undermine those efforts.
The Citgo case dates back to 2011, when the Venezuelan government seized a mine attributed to Crystallex (a Canadian gold producer), but did not reimburse the company $1.2 billion. Many other creditors have tried to go after Citgo to settle debts that the financially troubled Caracas government cannot or will not pay.
