(Reuters, Marianna Parraga, 12.Sep.2018) — PDVSA expects to reopen the south dock of Venezuela’s main oil port Jose by the end of September, easing strains on crude exports delayed due to a tanker collision last month, according to internal trade documents from the state-run oil firm seen by Reuters.
Last week, PDVSA began diverting tankers to Puerto la Cruz for loading, but the South American country’s crude exports have remained slow in recent weeks as few customers have accepted the 500,000-barrel-per-cargo maximum neighboring terminals can handle.
Besides Puerto la Cruz, tankers waiting to load a total 2.65 million barrels of Venezuelan upgraded and diluted crudes also plan to be serviced this month by two monobuoys at Jose, including cargoes scheduled for U.S.-based Chevron Corp and Russia’s Rosneft, the documents showed.
But a 1-million-barrel cargo of diluted crude oil (DCO) scheduled to be lifted by Rosneft at Jose between late September and early October was cancelled, according to the documents.
Rosneft and PDVSA in April agreed to a “remediation plan” to refinance an oil-for-loan agreement after delays to deliver cargoes of Venezuelan crude on time. DCO shipments scheduled since then belong to that plan.
PDVSA did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
At least three other 500,000-barrel cargoes for Valero Energy and PDVSA’s U.S. refining unit Citgo Petroleum plan to be loaded at Jose’s available docks and monobuoys in the coming days, after delays.
Valero also would pick up two additional 600,000-barrel cargoes of Morichal crude after a maintenance project that would halt the 150,000-barrel-per-day Petromonagas crude upgrader in August was again postponed, allowing more production.
PDVSA and its joint ventures exported 1.292 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude last month, a 7.7 percent decline versus July, according to Thomson Reuters trade flows data.
The country’s oil output fell again in August to 1.448 million bpd, according to numbers reported by OPEC on Wednesday. Venezuela’s accumulated annual production this year is 1.544 million bpd, the lowest since 1950. (Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Mexico City Editing by Marguerita Choy)
(Mining.com, Valentina Ruiz Leotaud, 29.Aug.2018) — State-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA or PDVSA announced on Twitter that it filed an appeal requesting that a Delaware court vacate a decision made public on August 23 granting Canadian miner Crystallex the right to seize its U.S. assets.
In its statement, the oil company said it had filed a petition on Friday, August 24, 2018, to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The petition is to direct the Delaware District Court to acknowledge it had been “divested of jurisdiction with respect to PDVSA and its property.”
The petition refers to a decision made on August 9, 2018, by U.S. District Judge Leonard Stark in the eastern U.S. state. Stark approved a request by Crystallex to attach shares in PDV Holdings, a U.S. subsidiary of PDVSA that indirectly controls refiner Citgo.
Citgo owns three refineries in Louisiana, Texas and Illinois, as well as other assets that have been valued between $8 billion and $10 billion.
With this move, Crystallex is aiming at collecting a $1.4-billion-award in compensation following a decade-long dispute over Venezuela’s 2008 nationalization of its gold mine in the southern Bolívar state. The amount is comprised of $1.2 billion plus $200 million of interest awarded by a World Bank arbitration tribunal in 2016.
If PDVSA’s appeal does not proceed, the Nicolás Maduro government could be forced to comply to Crystallex’s demands.
The Canadian firm has accused the Nicolás Maduro government of performing “fraudulent transfers” to avoid paying what it owes. Among those transactions, Crystallex has cited the payment of dividends from PDV Holding to PDVSA for $2.2 billion and the issuance of 49.9% of Citgo’s shares to secure a $1.5 billion loan granted by Russian giant Rosneft in 2016.
A lawsuit introduced by the miner against such asset transfers by Citgo was initially dismissed in January 2018, but the Toronto-based company requested a new hearing.
Nevertheless, PDVSA’s lawyers have argued that Crystallex cannot seize the holding company’s shares because it doesn’t have proper grounds for suing in the U.S. and because it couldn’t show the unit was the Venezuelan company’s “alter ego.”
In November 2017, Crystallex and Venezuela agreed to settle the dispute before Ontario Superior Court Justice Glenn Hainey. However, the deal did not resolve the fight over the $1.2 billion award because the cash-strapped South American country did not honour its payments.
(Citgo, 29.Aug.2018) — Through the CITGO Caring for Our Coast initiative, a program designed to boost ecological conservation, restoration and education, The Conservation Foundation (TCF) has been awarded a grant to continue its restoration work in the Heritage Quarries Recreation Area (HQRA) in Lemont.
In partnership with TCF and the Village of Lemont, the CITGO Lemont Refinery has been funding semiannual projects and working alongside local volunteers in the HQRA since the fall of 2014, removing invasive plant species and brush, and harvesting native species’ seeds for replanting.
Located half a mile east of downtown Lemont, the HQRA is situated among thousands of acres of forest preserves, which includes more than 65 miles of hiking and biking trails, as well as access to fishing and boating along the I & M Canal and the Consumers, Great Lakes and Icebox Quarries.
According to Scott LaMorte, senior advancement officer at TCF, the transformation of the HQRA, in just four years, has been remarkable.
“During a community workday last year, my group was assigned to clear a section near the picnic grove. After cutting out some of the weedy shrubs, we uncovered a pond that hadn’t been seen in decades! The ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos are just incredible,” said LaMorte.
Dennis Willig, Vice President and General Manager of the CITGO Lemont Refinery, describes the HQRA project as neighbors-serving-neighbors.
“We are proud to partner with the local community, because not only are natural resources being preserved, but residents will be able to enjoy the benefits of this outdoor recreational space for years to come,” said Willig.
(Energy Analytics Institute, Piero Stewart, 25.Aug.2018) — Venezuela is evaluating a plan to implement a natural gas project with Aruba.
Officials from Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, and its refining arm Citgo Petroleum Corporation continue to evaluate the potential of such a project that would imply a gas interconnection between Venezuela and Aruba, reported PDVSA in an official statement.
No further details about the plan were revealed by PDVSA.
(Oilprice.com, Irina Slav, 23.Aug.2018) — Rosneft has asked a U.S. federal court to establish “a robust appraisal and sale process” of Citgo shares following Canadian miner Crystallex’ win at court against the parent company of Citgo, PDVSA, Argus Media reports citing documents submitted by Rosneft to court.
“Such a course of action is particularly appropriate under the circumstances given the multitude of parties and interests potentially affected by a sale of PdVH,” the documents said.
Crystallex was ruled the winner in a long-running case against Venezuela, which it has sued over the forced nationalization of its assets by the Hugo Chavez government. A U.S. federal judge last week awarded the miner the right to approach Venezuela’s U.S. oil unit, Citgo, to seek its compensation of US$1.4 billion.
Yet the Russian state company has priority rights over 49.9 percent in Citgo. PDVSA used the stake as collateral for a US$1.5-billion loan provided by Rosneft in 2016. The move at the time sparked a lot of negative comments in the United States, with some legislators worried that Rosneft could at some point take control over the U.S. company. The rest of the Citgo stock has been pledged as collateral to a PDVSA bond issue that matures in two years, Argus Media notes.
Now Crystallex wants to take control over the refiner, which operates a refinery network with a daily capacity of 750,000 bpd, and then sell the stock on to another investor or investors to get its US$1.4 billion. The sum was awarded to the Canadian miner as compensation for the forced nationalization of its operations in Venezuela by the Hugo Chavez government.
At the time, the Associated Press noted that the ruling by Chief Judge Leonard P. Stark is unique: government assets such as Citgo’s parent, PDVSA, are as a rule protected from lawsuits targeting a state. Yet in Stark’s ruling, the judge said that Venezuela had blurred the lines between the government and the state oil firm, with a military official at the helm of PDVSA.
(Citgo, 21.Aug.2018) — As officially reported by Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) and ConocoPhillips, the two companies recently reached a settlement agreement resulting from the nationalization of the Hamaca and Petrozuata projects in 2007.
As background, ConocoPhillips initiated arbitration before the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), demanding that PDVSA pay approximately $20 billion in return for its assets. This amount was based on the theory that PDVSA should have unlimited liability for the actions of the country. However, on April 24, 2018 the ICC ruled that PDVSA should pay only $1.87 billion, an amount based on the previous association agreements between the two companies.
As a result of the settlement, ConocoPhillips has agreed to suspend its legal enforcement actions of the ICC award, including in the Dutch Caribbean. At the same time, PDVSA will pay approximately 25 percent of the award in the short term and the remaining balance in quarterly installments over the next 4.5 years.
PDVSA confirmed in a statement that it will continue serving both the international and domestic markets. Furthermore, the company affirmed that this agreement reached with ConocoPhillips demonstrates, once again, the firm will of PDVSA to reach commercial solutions with its creditors while continuing to strengthen itself and its commercial operations.
CITGO also continues serving its customers in the United States, and the resolution of this matter helps to ensure the stability in the overall CITGO commercial supply chain. As a leading refining and marketing company, with strong financial and operational performance, CITGO will continue producing and selling quality products and is well positioned for the future.
(The New York Times, Clifford Krauss, 20.Aug.2018) – More than a decade ago, Venezuela seized several oil projects from the American oil company ConocoPhillips without compensation. Now, under pressure after ConocoPhillips carried out its own seizures, the Venezuelans are going to make amends.
ConocoPhillips announced on Monday that the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, or Pdvsa, had agreed to a $2 billion judgment handed down by an International Chamber of Commerce tribunal that arbitrated the dispute. Pdvsa will be allowed to pay over nearly five years, but as it is nearly bankrupt, even those terms may be hard to meet.
After winning the arbitration ruling in April, ConocoPhillips seized Pdvsa oil inventories, cargoes and terminals on several Dutch Caribbean islands. The move seriously hampered Venezuela’s efforts to export oil to the United States and Asia, and emboldened other creditors to seek financial retribution.
“What they did was choke the exports and made it clear to Pdvsa that the cost of not coming to an agreement would be higher than actually settling on a payment schedule,” said Francisco J. Monaldi, a Venezuelan oil expert at Rice University.
As its oil production has plummeted to the lowest levels in decades, Venezuela has fallen behind on more than $6 billion in bond payments. Pdvsa has already defaulted on more than $2 billion in bonds after failing to make interest payments over the last year, and owes billions of dollars more to service companies.
Adding to Venezuela’s woes, the Trump administration has imposed sanctions that prohibit the purchase and sale of Venezuelan government debt, including bonds issued by the state oil company.
Mr. Monaldi said Pdvsa would be forced to pay ConocoPhillips with money it would have paid other creditors and would probably delay some oil shipments to China it owes in separate loan agreements. He added that “there is not a negligible probability” that at some point it will discontinue payments for lack of money.
Hyperinflation, corruption and growing starvation have crippled the Venezuelan economy, as the socialist government is forced to choose between buying food and medicine and satisfying the demands of creditors. Over the last few days, the government has scrambled to deal with its economic crisis by sharply devaluing its currency, raising wages and promising to shave energy subsidies.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. Its crisis has tightened global oil markets at a time when threatened United States oil sanctions against Iran could drive up prices.
The settlement with ConocoPhillips over the 2007 seizure resolves a drawn-out legal struggle, at least for the time being.
“As a result of the settlement, ConocoPhillips has agreed to suspend its legal enforcement actions of the I.C.C. award, including in the Dutch Caribbean,” ConocoPhillips said in a statement.
Pdvsa, which did not comment on the agreement, is to pay the first $500 million within 90 days.
ConocoPhillips is pursuing a separate arbitration case over the same seizure against the government of Venezuela before the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, which could result in another large settlement award, perhaps as high as $6 billion.
That amount would probably be unpayable, experts say, but it could put ConocoPhillips in a strong position to obtain access to Venezuelan oil fields in the future if the current government eventually falls.
Pdvsa’s problems with creditors are far-reaching, putting its American Citgo assets, including three large refineries and a pipeline network, in jeopardy. A federal judge in Delaware recently ruled that Crystallex, a Canadian gold mining company, could seize over $1 billion in shares of Citgo as compensation for a 2008 nationalization of a mining operation in Venezuela.
Citgo is appealing. If it loses, that may open the way for more claims on Citgo assets by companies whose investments have been expropriated in Venezuela, including Exxon Mobil.
(Energy Analytics Institute, Jared Yamin, 19.Aug.2018) – Former PDVSA President Rafael Ramírez says Venezuela produced 3 million barrels per day until December 2013. That figure has dropped by 1.8 million, according to his statements.
“When we were in the revolutionary government of Comandante Chávez, we had fiscal balance and enough income for all social programs, not because the price was 100 dollars a barrel, as the infamous say (we showed that we only had those prices for 4 years, the rest of the years prices were between 22 and 42 dollars a barrel, much less than now), but, precisely, because we charged transnationals and PDVSA all the taxes and royalties without exemptions of any kind. But, in addition, we had oil production of 3 million barrels per day until December 2013,” writes Ramírez in a blog post on Medium.
A PDV petrol station in the once popular Las Mercedes section of Caracas, Venezuela. Prior to its takeover, the station was controlled and run by Chevron Corporation. Source: Energy Analytics Institute (EAI)
“Now, the government has destroyed PDVSA, its production has fallen, in just 4 years (with a dramatic drop since Quevedo entered) to 1.2 million barrels a day due to the inability and irresponsibility of Maduro in the management of oil issues. In PDVSA, we have lost 1.8 million barrels per day, at an average price of 63 dollars per barrel, we are talking about 113.4 million dollars every day, which [is to say] they [have] stopped receiving, 4.139 million dollars a year!,” writes Ramírez, who also served as Venezuela’s Minister of Petroleum, among other posts during the governments of the late President Hugo Chávez and current Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, until his departure and rupture with the latter.
“Now, the owners of the petroleum, that’s to say, the Venezuelan citizens, have to pay the international price for gasoline, as if [Venezuela] were not a petroleum country.” — Ramírez
(Energy Analytics Institute, Aaron Simonsky, 11.Aug2018) – Houston-based Citgo Petroleum Corporation is the refining arm of Venezuela’s Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). What follows is a brief company profile.
Citgo, a Delaware corporation with headquarters in Houston, refines, markets, and transports gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, lubricants, petrochemicals, and other petroleum-based industrial products. Citgo has 3,500 employees and is owned by Citgo Holding, Inc., an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of PDVSA, the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, according to data posted to the company’s website.
Citgo owns and operates three highly complex crude oil refineries located in the following cities:
— Lake Charles, LA (425,000 barrels-per-day [b/d]),
— Lemont, IL (167,000-b/d), and
— Corpus Christi, TX (157,000-b/d).
These refineries process approximately 200,000 b/d of Venezuelan crudes, including supplies from Orinoco Oil Belt upgraders. The combined aggregate crude oil refining capacity of 749,000-b/d, positions Citgo as one of the largest refiners in the nation. The company owns and/or operates 48 petroleum product terminals, one of the largest networks in the country.
In 2016, Citgo sold approximately 13.6 billion gallons of refined products, including exports. The company markets quality motor fuels to independent marketers who consistently rate Citgo as one of the best-branded supplier companies in the industry. Citgo branded marketers sell motor fuels through more than 5,200 independently owned, branded retail outlets.
Citgo markets jet fuel directly to airlines and produces a variety of agricultural, automotive, industrial and private label lubricants which are sold to independent distributors, mass marketers and industrial customers as well as other clients. In addition, the company sells petrochemicals and industrial products directly to various manufacturers and industrial companies throughout the United States.
Citgo History
From the gasoline that helps your family take vacations to the advanced medical equipment at your community hospital, Citgo is fueling good, the company reported on its website.
It’s amazing the difference petroleum-based products make in our everyday lives. Based in Houston, Texas, Citgo is a refiner and marketer of transportation fuels, lubricants, petrochemicals and other industrial products. In addition to these products, there’s probably a Citgo in your neighborhood, a convenient place to fill up with gas and grab a quick snack.
The story of Citgo Petroleum Corporation as an enduring American success story began back in 1910 when pioneer oilman, Henry L. Doherty, created the Cities Service Company.
When Cities Service determined that it needed to change its marketing brand, it introduced the name CITGO in 1965, retaining the first syllable of its long-standing name and ending with “GO” to imply power, energy and progressiveness. The now familiar and enduring Citgo “trimark” logo was born.
Occidental Petroleum bought Cities Service in 1982, and Citgo was incorporated as a wholly owned refining, marketing and transportation subsidiary in the spring of the following year. Then, in August, 1983, Citgo was sold to The Southland Corporation to provide an assured supply of gasoline to Southland’s 7-Eleven convenience store chain.
In September, 1986, Southland sold a 50 percent interest in Citgo to Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., (PDVSA), the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. PDVSA acquired the remaining half of Citgo in January, 1990 and the company is owned by Citgo Holding, Inc., an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary. With a secure and ample supply of crude oil, Citgo quickly became a major force in the energy arena.
Since 1985, Citgo has sold its various products through independent marketers. Our relationship with these individuals is really what makes CITGO different from other petroleum companies.
(Energy Analytics Institute, Jared Yamin, 11.Aug.2018) – Crystallex seems to have cut in line while there are many others already in line for CITGO assets and value.
What follows are comments published by Venezuelan oil analyst Francisco Monaldi in a series of tweets related to the legal battle over CITGO:
1) The value of CITGO is much higher than the claim by Crystallex, which by the way was an outrageously high amount for that expropriation,
2) This is the beginning of a shark fest of claims and lawsuits. There are many others in line for CITGO assets and value, CITGO bond holders, CITGO creditors, PDVSA 2020 bondholders, Rosneft, Conoco, other PDVSA and Venezuela creditors and ICSID claimants. It seems to me that Crystallex should not be ahead in this line,
3) In the short term this would be a blow for PDVSA making it harder to get diluents from the US and to earn cash from its heavy exports, but it is just the last in a long list of troubles including default and sanctions,
4) In the long term it would be a big blow to Venezuela, losing a strategic asset to access the USGC market in competition with Canadian heavy, particularly after Keystone is completed,
5) Outside of CITGO, Venezuela has only a few much less valuable assets, what claimants will try is to seize or disrupt PDVSA’s flows of oil and receivables, and force them to negotiate something, and
6) This is a tragic story of recklessness and incompetence by the chavismo, increasing the debt without investment, expropriating and destroying value, in the middle of an oil boom. The consequences, collapsed oil production and now the final reckoning with their claimants…
(UPI, Daniel J. Graeber, 10.Aug.2018) – Though it holds the largest reserves of oil in the world, production levels put it only in the middle of the pack among OPEC member states.
Venezuelan plans to stabilize crude oil production do little to address bottlenecks and the shortage of investments, an analyst said Friday.
Manuel Quevedo, the head of state-controlled Petróleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, announced crude oil production has stabilized after a chronic decline and the country was looking to pick up the pace by tapping its mature assets.
Despite its vast reserves, corruption and international isolation have impacted oil production from one of the founding members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Secondary sources reporting to OPEC economists put Venezuelan production at 1.3 million barrels per day on average last month, down 38 percent from the 2016 average.
Adrian Lara, a senior oil and gas analyst at GlobalData, said in comments emailed to UPI that Venezuela has issues building up on issues, from actual production to refinery problems.
“So not only (do) the challenges remain, but they compound on each other on a path that could prolong and increase the decline rate of oil production in the Orinoco Belt,” he said.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Orinoco Belt holds a mean volume of 513 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil reserves. An annual review of global reserves from Italian energy company Eni put Venezuela at the top of the list. While the United States was the top producer last year, its total reserves represented about 10 percent of Venezuela’s.
Lara said focusing on mature assets could be a sound strategy for Venezuela, but that would require significant investments in a country facing profound economic crises.
“Without details on the strategy it is difficult to assess how PDVSA can implement a plan where the loss of production in the Orinoco Belt can be compensated by these fields’ production,” he said.
In an outlook on Latin America, the International Monetary Fund noted real gross domestic product for Venezuela is on pace to drop 18 percent this year, the third year in a row for a double-digit decline in oil revenue was $22 billion last year, compared with about $70 billion in 2011. Total Venezuelan exports are 10 percent lower than 2016 levels.
(AFP, 10.Aug.2018) – Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA on Friday appealed a US court ruling that would allow a Canadian mining company to seize shares of PDVSA’s US-subsidiary Citgo in payment of a $1.2 billion debt.
The case dates from 2011, when the Venezuelan government seized a mine Crystallex had been awarded and despite a settlement through an arbitration panel Caracas failed to repay the company.
US District Court Judge Leonard Stark ruled Thursday the mining firm could seize Citgo shares from PDVSA, although the order will not be issued until final details are worked out.
He rejected PDVSA’s argument that it is separate from the government in Caracas and should not be held liable, favoring the assertion that the company is an “alter ego” of the government.
It is another blow to the embattled government of President Nicolas Maduro, who has overseen the collapse of the nation’s once-thriving oil-based economy, which is now in default.
Thousands of Venezuelans flee the country daily, malnutrition is rife and the International Monetary Fund said inflation could reach one million percent this year.
PDVSA, once the jewel in the crown of the nation’s economy, has been hamstrung by debt and lack of investment that has shrunk output.
Losing Citgo would dry up one of the last remaining sources of foreign revenue. And even that is already at risk since a nearly 50 percent stake in Citgo was used as collateral for a $1.5 billion loan from Russia’s Rosneft.
PDVSA’s bonds represent 30 percent of Venezuela’s external debt — estimated to be around $150 billion.
A tanker sails out of the Port of Corpus Christi in Texas after discharging crude oil at the Citgo refinery. Photo: Eddie Seal, Stf / Bloomberg
(Houston Chronicle, Jordan Blum, 10.Aug.2018) – Financially crippled Venezuela likely will lose control of its Houston refining arm Citgo Petroleum once a slew of lawsuits eventually are resolved, and it’s just a matter of when and to whom, finance and energy analysts said Friday.
A federal judge ruled late Thursday that a defunct Canadian mining firm can go after Citgo’s assets to collect $1.4 billion it allegedly lost from Venezuela when the government seized mining and energy assets more than a decade ago under the late socialist leader Hugo Chávez.
While the Canadian firm, Crystallex International, is unlikely to take control of Citgo’s refining and retail gasoline assets throughout the U.S., the ruling is expected to kick off an array of new legal claims against Venezuela and its state oil company – from Houston-based ConocoPhillips to other oil and gas firms – with the goal of winning Citgo as the prize, legal and finance experts said. After all, Venezuela owes a lot of money to a lot of different companies.
Whichever company eventually wins out could sell to refiners that might be interested, including San Antonio’s Valero Energy, Houston’s Phillips 66, Ohio-based Marathon Petroleum and New Jersey’s PBF Energy, said Jennifer Rowland, and energy analyst with Edward Jones in St. Louis.
“It’s not every day that a suite of refineries becomes available, especially along the Gulf Coast,” Rowland said. “Those assets would definitely fit in some companies’ portfolios.”
Citgo, which declined comment Friday, owns oil refineries in Corpus Christi, Lake Charles, La., and Illinois. The company employs about 4,000 people in the U.S., including 800 in Houston. Citgo has roughly 160 branded gas stations in the Houston area, and about 5,500 nationwide. The company is valued at nearly $8 billion.
Citgo is a U.S. company with a more than 100-year history. It was acquired by Venezuela’s state-run oil company three decades ago. The state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, is known as PDVSA.
The Citgo assets are seen as the crown jewel for companies targeting PDVSA legally because they’re the most accessible assets outside of Venezuela, said Craig Pirrong, a University of Houston finance professor specializing in energy markets. Thursday’s court ruling opened the door for many more claims made against Citgo by those owed money by Venezuela, he said, because the judge allowed Venezuela’s debts to extend to its U.S. refining assets as an “alter ego” of the government.
“It’s going to be like a feeding frenzy going after Citgo,” Pirrong said.
And now a series of complex legal battles will ensue, possibly dragging out into next year, said Franciso Monaldi, a fellow in Latin American Energy Policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.
“I don’t expect PDVSA to immediately lose control of Citgo, but I think eventually it will happen,” Monaldi said. “It’s really just a matter of who will get it.”
Venezuela has suffered a financial and geopolitical freefall under Chavez’ socialist successor and current president, Nicolas Maduro. Many thousands of people have fled the country, fearing starvation and violence, including some PDVSA workers, as the country’s oil production has plummeted.
As he’s consolidated power in the destabilized nation, Maduro jailed an opposition lawmaker this week after a failed assassination plot that involved two flying drones with explosives.
Citgo has faced increasing uncertainty since November, when its acting president and five other Houston-based executives with dual citizenship were arrested in Venezuela on corruption charges.
Maduro installed Chávez’s cousin, Asdrúbal Chávez, as the new Citgo president. Although he remains in charge, the new Citgo leader was ordered in July by the U.S. State Department to surrender his U.S. visa amid an ongoing probe into PDVSA. Citgo said Chávez would continue in his role remotely for now.
The future of Citgo is further complicated because 49.9 percent of Citgo is pledged to Russian oil giant Rosneft as collateral for a $1.5 billion loan. The U.S. government would fight losing control of Citgo to Russian interests, analysts said.
As for Crystallex, Thursday’s ruling doesn’t actually hand Citgo over to the defunct firm. But it does position Crystallex to force a large settlement from Venezuela, Monaldi said.
He added that ConocoPhillips could make a stronger claim for Citgo because it’s already won a $2 billion ruling against PDVSA, and not just Venezuela as a whole. In the spring, ConocoPhillips won court orders to seize PDVSA assets on Caribbean islands, quickly taking action against refining and oil storage assets in the Caribbean islands of Curacao, Bonaire and Sint Eustatius.
But ConocoPhillips said it is still a good ways off from recouping the full $2 billion. ConocoPhillips also argued PDVSA has transferred some petroleum products to Citgo to prevent their seizure.
“It’s looking bleak for Venezuela,” Pirrong added.
(Reuters, 10.Aug.2018) – Venezuela’s crude exports to the United States declined to 494,400 barrels per day (bpd) in July after rising the prior three months, showing the impact of asset seizures against state-run oil firm PDVSA, according to Thomson Reuters data.
July was the first month crude exports fell below 500,000 bpd since the months of January through March.
U.S. oil producer ConocoPhillips in May began seizing PDVSA’s overseas assets in an attempt to collect on a $2 billion arbitration award. Its legal actions have left PDVSA with no access to most of its Caribbean terminals, restricting the company’s already dwindling exports.
Most of PDVSA’s customers in the United States, where flows of Venezuelan oil have also been affected in the last year by financial sanctions imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, are now receiving fewer barrels.
In July, 30 cargoes of Venezuelan crude arrived at U.S. ports, compared with 33 in June. The volumes in July were 12 percent lower than the prior month and 22.5 percent below the same month a year earlier, according to the data.
Only two cargoes of Venezuelan crude were shipped last month from the Caribbean island of Aruba, where PDVSA’s unit Citgo Petroleum operates an oil terminal. A local court in May temporarily froze inventories and cargoes there at Conoco’s request, but weeks later it allowed the U.S. refining subsidiary to resume normal operations at the facility.
No Venezuelan crude has been shipped to the United States since mid-June from Curacao, Bonaire or St. Eustatius, neighboring Caribbean islands that PDVSA has used to refine, store and ship oil, according to the data.
The largest importer of Venezuelan crude in the United States last month was Valero Energy, which has managed to ramp up imports of Venezuelan oil in recent months amid the country’s export crisis.
The second largest importer was Citgo.
Even amid declining crude exports, shipments to the United States of Diluted Crude Oil (DCO) made with Venezuelan extra heavy oil and imported naphtha continued rising in July, to 252,820 bpd, suggesting limited output of upgraded crude at Venezuela’s main crude producing region, the Orinoco Belt.
PDVSA has limited the damage from the asset seizures by transferring oil between tankers at sea and loading vessels in neighboring Cuba. But the company is fulfilling less than 60 percent of its supply obligations with customers.
(Reporting by Marianna Parraga; editing by Gary McWilliams and Phil Berlowitz )
(Reuters, Brian Ellsworth, 10.Aug.2018) – Crystallex’s victory in a legal battle with Venezuela that paves the way for it to collect a $1.4 billion award hinged on a finding that state oil company PDVSA is not separate from the Venezuelan government, court documents showed on Friday.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware granted Crystallex’s request to take ownership of shares in PDVSA subsidiary of PDVH, which owns U.S.-based refiner Citgo, as part of a decade-long dispute over the 2008 nationalization of Crystallex assets.
“Crystallex has met its burden to rebut the presumption of separateness between PDVSA and Venezuela and proven that PDVSA is the alter ego of Venezuela,” wrote Judge Leonard P. Stark in the decision.
The issue has been closely watched by investors holding billions of dollars in Venezuelan bonds, which are almost all in default as the OPEC nation struggles under the collapse of its socialist economy.
Legal experts had generally believed that creditors of Venezuela, which has few foreign assets available to be seized by creditors, would have a difficult time pursuing claims against PDVSA because the two were considered separate.
Venezuela two years ago put up 49.9 percent of Citgo shares as collateral for a $1.5 billion loan from Russian oil major Rosneft. The remaining 50.1 percent was set aside as collateral for PDVSA’s 2020 bond.
Judge Stark said the court had not yet determined when it would issue a writ allowing Crystallex to assume ownership of the shares of PDV Holding Inc, or what mechanism should be used to sell those shares.
“The decision could make it more complicated if other courts ignore the boundary between the government and PDVSA,” said Mark Weidemaier, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law. “It expands the pool of creditors that could go after PDVSA and casts a shadow over its ability to keep its oil receivables safe.”
PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez, asked by a reporter about the decision during a press conference on Friday, declined to comment on it.
Legal counsel for Crystallex declined to comment.
PDVSA’s 2020 bond dropped 4.500 points in price to 85.500 on Friday
Bonds issued by PDVSA and Venezuela were down slightly, in line with a broad selloff in global markets on Friday.
( Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, Editing by Paul Simao and Cynthia Osterman)
(Associated Press, 9.Aug.2018) – A Canadian gold mining company on Thursday won the right to go after Venezuela’s prized U.S.-based oil refineries and collect $1.4 billion it lost in a decade-old take-over by the late socialist President Hugo Chavez.
Chief Judge Leonard P. Stark of the U.S. Federal District Court in Delaware made the ruling in favor of Crystallex, striking a blow to crisis-wracked Venezuela, which stands to lose its most valuable asset outside of the country – Citgo.
Chavez took over the gold mining firm and many other international companies as part of his Bolivarian revolution that’s left the country spiraling into deepening economic and political turmoil.
Venezuelans struggle to afford scarce food and medicine as masses flee across the border. In a sign of rising political tensions, current President Nicolas Maduro threw an opposition lawmaker in jail this week, charged in a failed assassination plot using two drones loaded with explosives.
The latest order by the U.S. judge could set off a scramble by a long list of creditors owed $65 billion from bonds that cash-strapped Venezuela has stopped paying within the last year, said Russ Dallen, a Miami-based partner at the brokerage firm Caracas Capital Markets.
“This was the most vulnerable low hanging fruit for debtholders to go after,” Dallen said. “It looks like Crystallex is the lucky lottery winner because they got there first.”
Chavez in early 2009 announced Venezuela’s take-over of the Canadian mining operations in Bolivar state, a mineral rich region with one of the continent’s largest gold deposits. He accused mining companies of damaging the environment and violating workers’ rights.
Crystallex spent years trying to negotiate a deal with Venezuela before making its case in 2011 to a World Bank arbitration panel, which sided with the Canadian firm, despite Venezuela’s vigorous fight.
U.S.-based Citgo, part of the state-run oil company PDVSA, has three refineries in Louisiana, Texas and Illinois in addition to a network of pipelines. If the order is carried out, Crystallex won’t get all of Citgo – valued at $8 billion – but Venezuela could be forced to liquidate it to make good on the court order.
Today, the gold mining region once operated by Crystallex is largely lawless and dangerous, run by rogue miners who blast the earth with water and mercury to expose gold nuggets and sell them to government forces, often leading to deadly conflicts.
The judge’s ruling is unique, because government assets, like PDVSA, are normally protected from lawsuits against a sovereign nation. But the judge found that Crystallex can attach Citgo’s parent because Venezuela has erased the lines between the government and its oil firm, now run by a military general.
Upon issuing the order, the judge delayed enforcing it for a week, which Dallen said could be a move to give Crystallex and Venezuela time to reach an agreement, such as returning to payment terms of an earlier resolution, Dallen said.
“This gives Venezuela the chance to honor its settlement agreement,” Dallen said. “Or they’ll lose Citgo.”
(Reuters, Marianna Parraga, Mircely Guanipa, 7.Aug.2018) – Reuters) – Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA has limited the damage from an unprecedented slump in crude exports by transferring oil between tankers at sea and loading vessels in neighboring Cuba to avoid asset seizures.
But the OPEC member nation is still fulfilling less than 60 percent of its obligations under supply deals with customers.
Venezuela has been pumping oil this year at the lowest rate in three decades after years of underinvestment and a mass exodus of workers. The state-run firm’s collapse has left the country short of cash to fund its embattled socialist government and triggered an economic crisis.
PDVSA’s problems were compounded in May when U.S. oil firm ConocoPhillips began seizing PDVSA assets in the Caribbean as payment for a $2 billion arbitration award. An arbitration panel at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ordered PDVSA to pay the cash to compensate Conoco for expropriating the firm’s Venezuelan assets in 2007.
The seizures left PDVSA without access to facilities such as Isla refinery in Curacao and BOPEC terminal in Bonaire that accounted for almost a quarter of the company’s oil exports.
Conoco’s actions also forced PDVSA to stop shipping oil on its own vessels to terminals in the Caribbean, and then onto refineries worldwide, to avoid the risk the cargoes would be seized in international waters or foreign ports.
Instead, PDVSA asked customers to charter tankers to Venezuelan waters and load from the company’s own terminals or from anchored PDVSA vessels acting as floating storage units.
The state-run company told some clients in early June it might impose force majeure, a temporary suspension of export contracts, unless they agreed to such ship-to-ship transfers.
PDVSA also requested the customers stop sending vessels to its terminals until it could load those that were already clogging Venezuela’s coastline.
Initially, customers were reluctant to undertake the transfers because of costs, safety concerns and the need for specialist equipment and experienced crew.
But PDVSA has managed to export about 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil since early July, up from just 765,000 bpd in the first half of June, according to Thomson Reuters data and internal PDVSA shipping data seen by Reuters.
That was still 59 percent of the country’s 2.19 million bpd in contractual obligations to customers for that period, and some vessels are still waiting for weeks in Venezuelan waters to load oil.
There were about two dozen tankers waiting this week to load over 22 million barrels of crude and refined products at the country’s largest ports, according to Reuters data.
“We are not tied to one option or a single loading terminal,” PDVSA President Manuel Quevedo said on Tuesday of the company’s exports. “We have several (terminals) in our country and we have some in the Caribbean, which of course facilitate crude shipping to fulfill our supply contracts.”
CUBAN CONNECTION
PDVSA has also used a route through Cuba to ease the impact of the Conoco seizures. That route is for fuel rather than crude.
The Venezuelan company has used a terminal at the port of Matanzas as a conduit mostly for exporting fuel oil, according to two people familiar with the operations and Thomson Reuters shipping data. Venezuela’s fuel oil is burned in some countries to generate electricity.
Two tankers set sail from the Matanzas terminal for Singapore between mid-May and early July, Reuters data showed. Each ship carried around 500,000 barrels of Venezuelan fuel, Reuters data shows.
In recent months, Venezuela has been shipping fuel to Matanzas in small batches, according to the data.
PDVSA and Cuba’s state-run oil firm Cupet have used Matanzas to store Venezuelan crude and fuel in the past but exports from the terminal to Asian destinations are rare.
That is in part because vessels that use Cuban ports cannot subsequently dock in the United States due to the U.S. commercial embargo on Cuba.
Cupet did not respond to requests for comment.
PDVSA has also used ship-to-ship transfers to fulfill an unusual supply contract it has with Cuba’s Cienfuegos refinery.
The refinery dates from the 1980s – when Cuba was a close ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War – and the facility was built to process Russian crude.
PDVSA typically uses its own or leased tankers to bring Russian crude from storage in the nearby Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao to Cienfuegos. But it is now discharging the imported Russian oil at sea in Cayman Islands’ waters via these seaborne transfers.
ConocoPhillips last month ratcheted up its collection efforts by moving to depose officials from Citgo Petroleum, PDVSA’s U.S. refining arm, arguing it had improperly claimed ownership of some PDVSA cargoes.
Citgo declined to comment.
ConocoPhillips is also preparing new legal actions to get Caribbean courts to recognize its International Chamber of Commerce arbitration award. If it succeeds in those efforts, it would be able to sell the assets to help satisfy the ruling.
Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston and Mircely Guanipa in Punto Fijo, Venezuela; additional reporting by Marc Frank in Havana; Editing by Simon Webb and Brian Thevenot
(EIA, 21.Jun.2018) – Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves in the world, in large part because of the heavy oil reserves in the Orinoco Oil Basin. In addition to oil reserves, Venezuela has sizeable natural gas reserves, although the development of natural gas lags significantly behind that of oil, reported the US-based Energy Information Administration (EIA) in its updated Venezuela country report posted online. However, in the wake of political and economic instability in the country, crude oil production has dramatically decreased, reaching a multi-decades low in mid-2018.
(Energy Analytics Institute, 26.Mar.2017) – Houston-based Citgo Petroleum Corporation, the U.S.-based refinery arm of PDVSA, had to skip out on sending heating oil to citizens in the U.S. northeast under a program dubbed “Joe-4-Oil” amid a continued economic crisis in the oil-rich nation, reported the news agency AP.
(Energy Analytics Institute, Ian Silverman, 25.Dec.2016) – PDVSA maintains full ownership and control over its Houston-based subsidiary Citgo Petroleum Corporation.
PDVSA, in an official statement, also downplayed media versions and comments emitted by persons it claims are only interested in generating political instability in Venezuela based on speculation, rumors and biased information in an attempt to discredit the company.
In October, PDVSA used a 50.1 percent interest in Citgo as a guarantee for bond swap operations and the remaining 49.9 percent interest in its U.S.-based refining subsidiary as a guarantee to raise new financing, according to the statement.
Redd Intelligence, on November 30, uncovered a Delaware Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) filing and broke initial news regarding the filing against Citgo parent PDV Holding, Inc. that revealed Venezuela had secretly mortgaged its Citgo refineries in the U.S. to Russia’s state-controlled oil company Rosneft.
(Energy Analytics Institute, Pietro D. Pitts, 11.Jun.2016) – Authorities from the governments of Aruba, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and officials from Venezuela’s state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) and CITGO Aruba, gathered in Caracas, Venezuela to take part in the execution of a commercial agreement between CITGO Aruba and the Aruban government to reopen a 209,000 barrel per day refinery located in San Nicolas, Aruba.
Officials in attendance at the gathering included: Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s Oil Minister Eulogio del Pino, Aruba’s Primer Minister Mike Eman; Aruba’s Economy, Communication, Energy and Environment Minister Mike de Meza, and CITGO Petroleum Corporation President and CEO Nelson P. Martínez, reported CITGO in an official statement on its website.
Following several months of negotiations, officials from the Aruban government and CITGO Aruba, announced plans to reactivate operations — which had been idled since 2012 — through a refining facilities 15-year lease agreement, with a 10-year extension option. CITGO Aruba, a group of operating companies under PDV Holding (a PDVSA subsidiary), will operate the facility with CITGO providing services to the group.
“This project will transform the refinery into an upgrader for Venezuelan extra-heavy crude within 18 months to two years. This process — which will require an investment ranging from $450 million to $650 million, to be obtained from external financing sources — can be compared to a large turnaround. This is an area in which CITGO is well positioned to provide technical expertise and services,” Martínez said, adding that with these changes, the refinery would become a successful economic venture for all parties.
“This has been a very well thought-out process which involved the participation of the best available technical consultants from CITGO and PDVSA, as well as the input of several leading international refining industry consulting firms, such as KBC Advanced Technologies, KBR of Venezuela and Aruba continue to evaluate the possible construction of a natural gas pipeline that would link the two countries which are just 17 miles apart …
Germany and others that assessed the project’s technical and financial viability,” Martínez added.
Once the adaptation process has concluded, the facility will upgrade extra-heavy crude from the Venezuela’s Orinoco Heavy Oil Belt or Faja, transforming it into intermediate crude, which in turn will be sent on to the CITGO refining network in the United States of America for further processing, Martínez explained. At the same time, naphtha will be sold to PDVSA for use as diluent for its extra-heavy crude.
A complementary project under consideration would allow the utilization of excess natural gas available in the Paraguaná region of Venezuela. Besides the significant energy cost savings in operations that this would generate, using natural gas would substantially reduce refinery emissions and contribute to environmental protection efforts in the region, the CITGO CEO said, adding that the construction of a gas pipeline linking the coasts of Venezuela and Aruba, which are just 17 miles apart, is being evaluated towards this end.
“This is a very strong project from both the technical and financial perspective. It is a strategic partnership that will benefit CITGO Aruba, PDVSA, Venezuela and Aruba through operations that reduce costs in terms of transportation, energy and storage needs, fully utilize existing infrastructure and maximize the benefit of extra-heavy crude oil production from the Orinoco Oil Belt, the largest oil reservoir in the world,” Martínez concluded.
(Energy Analytics Institute, Piero Stewart, 17.Jun.2013) – The Public Affairs Manager with Houston-based Citgo Petroleum, Fernando Garay, comments via phone regarding declining imports of Venezuelan crude oil in the U.S.
“We are not worried about the prospect of declining oil supplies from our Caracas-based parent company PDVSA and have no problem looking to other markets for supply.”
(Energy Analytics Institute, Piero Stewart, 17.Jun.2013) – The Public Affairs Manager with Houston-based Citgo Petroleum, Fernando Garay, comments via phone regarding declining imports of Venezuelan crude oil in the U.S.
“We are not worried about the prospect of declining oil supplies from our Caracas-based parent company PDVSA and have no problem looking to other markets for supply.”
(TulsaWorld, Rod Walton, 2.Jul.2010) – The action comes amid a payment dispute in which the company left the equipment idle.
Helmerich & Payne’s 52-year business relationship with Venezuela came to at least a temporary end Thursday as President Hugo Chavez’s government seized 11 rigs owned by the Tulsa contract drilling company.
The conventional drilling rigs have been idle since last year because Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the national oil company, has not paid Helmerich & Payne Inc. for work, H&P has said.
The company says PDVSA owes it about $43 million. The amount owed once exceeded $100 million.
Venezuela had threatened to seize the rigs since last week, saying that “forced acquisition” was necessary because Helmerich & Payne would not put the equipment back to work.
H&P’s “long-lived” assets in Venezuela are valued at about $67 million, the company’s spokesman Mike Drickamer said in an e-mailed response to the Tulsa World.
The seized rigs make up all of H&P’s equipment in Venezuela.
CEO Hans Helmerich and other company executives initially downplayed the impasse, saying they simply wanted to be paid for past work. Venezuela’s National Assembly and Chavez followed through with the threat by issuing an official decree earlier this week.
Venezuela has been a financial thorn in the side of several companies in recent years.
Williams Cos. Inc. of Tulsa, a natural gas producer, lost two joint-venture compression plants to seizure last year and also was forced to take a $241 million write-down on its books because of nonpayment.
ConocoPhillips, the integrated oil giant with significant offices in Bartlesville, lost multibillion-dollar joint venture projects to seizure by PDVSA. The Houston company later sought international arbitration over the compensation offered by Venezuela.
Citgo, a Houston marketing and retail company once based in Tulsa, is the U.S. wing of the Venezuelan state oil industry.
