What is Citgo, the Venezuelan oil company said to have been stolen by the U.S.?

The government of Nicolás Maduro accused the US of trying to “illegally” and “arbitrarily” sell shares of Citgo, a subsidiary of the state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and its main asset abroad.

That is reportedly the history of the Venezuelan oil company operating in the North American country since the beginning of the 20th century.

The Presidential Commission Alí Rodríguez Araque, which guarantees and safeguards PDVSA’s interests, rejected the order of the judge of the US District of Delaware (East), Leonard Stark, which enables procedures for the sale of the oil company CITGO Petroleum.

The judicial decision “responds to the hegemonic and imperial power of the United States of America, thus deepening its multiform war and its pretension of shameless and indiscriminate plundering of the assets of the Venezuelan people,” said the Commission.

The origins of the company date back to the beginning of the 20th century in the USA, when it operated under the name of Cities Service. In 1965 it changed its trade name to Citgo.

In 1986 half of Citgo’s shares were acquired by PDVSA. In 1990 the Venezuelan state-owned company became the sole owner of the company, which is its main asset outside the national territory.

In the early 1990s, Citgo extended its refining network by purchasing the Savannah refinery in Georgia (southeast) and 50% of the Lyondell refinery, based in Houston, Texas (south), among other acquisitions.

At that time, up to 1.25 million barrels of oil per day were refined.

The company went through a series of alterations in the early 2000s.

Former President Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) announced in 2010 the sale of Citgo due to the losses it had been incurring since 2006.

However, some refineries, pipelines, and service stations were sold, but the company remained in Venezuelan hands.

After Chávez died in 2013, the government of Nicolás Maduro faced an economic crisis that also impacted the company.

In 2018, Judge Leonard Stark ruled in favor of the Canadian company Crystallex, which had sued Venezuela for revoking mining rights in Venezuelan territory.

The ruling authorized the sale of Citgo shares to pay the debt to the Canadian company.

The most critical moment would come in 2019 when former opposition deputy Juan Guaidó took over the management of Citgo and other assets abroad.

That same year, Maduro’s government tried to regain control of the company and took the case to the Delaware Court, but the US justice backed Guaidó.

Citgo is currently refining, marketing, and transporting petroleum-based fuels and industrial products.

The company also owns three highly complex crude oil refineries in Louisiana, Illinois, and Texas, with a production capacity of 425,000, 167,000, and 157,000 barrels per day, respectively.

With information from Sputnik