A Delaware decide has ordered the sale to settle money owed, as Venezuela says US army buildup is focusing on its oil reserves.
Printed On 3 Dec 2025
Venezuelan Vice President and Minister of Petroleum Delcy Rodriguez has condemned a US courtroom’s choice to authorise the “fraudulent” and “compelled” sale of Venezuelan oil firm Citgo in the US to repay billions of {dollars} in money owed.
“We energetically reject the choice adopted within the judicial course of”, Rodriguez stated in an announcement learn on state tv concerning the sale, which the Venezuelan authorities has at all times opposed.
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Delaware Choose Leonard Stark final week ordered the sale of Citgo’s guardian firm to Amber Vitality, an affiliate of the hedge fund Elliott Funding Administration, for $5.9bn. Elliott Funding Administration stated in a press launch that the courtroom order was “backed by a bunch of strategic US power buyers”.
Citgo, a Houston-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela, SA), a state-owned oil firm, has been dealing with claims that it owes greater than $20bn to collectors, reflecting the broader monetary woes of the South American nation beneath US sanctions, which have focused its as soon as worthwhile oil business.
The corporate’s collectors embrace the Canadian agency Crystallex, which one other US courtroom stated was owed $1.2bn by the Venezuelan authorities in 2019 over Caracas’s 2008 seizure and nationalisation of the Las Cristinas mine, which is wealthy with gold, diamonds, iron and different minerals.
The sale of Citgo comes as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claims that the US’s current army build-up within the Caribbean Sea surrounding his nation is geared toward seizing Venezuela’s huge oil reserves.
Whereas Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, estimated at 303 billion barrels as of 2023, it exported simply $4.05bn value of crude oil in 2023, far beneath different main oil-producing nations, partially on account of US sanctions imposed throughout US President Donald Trump’s first time period.
Final week, Maduro called on fellow members of the Group of the Petroleum Exporting International locations (OPEC) to assist his nation counter “growing and illegal threats” from the US and its president.
Nevertheless, Paolo von Schirach, the president of the World Coverage Institute, stated that he doubted that Venezuela’s plea would elicit a lot help “inside OPEC itself”.
The Trump administration has claimed that its army actions within the area are centered on tackling drug trafficking.
Venezuela was traditionally one of many largest exporters of oil to the US, however gross sales declined sharply after Hugo Chavez was elected president in 1998.
Then, dealing with strict sanctions beneath the primary Trump administration, Venezuela shifted its exports to nations together with China, India and Cuba.
A slight easing of the commerce tensions beneath former US President Joe Biden’s administration noticed US multinational firm Chevron granted a restricted oil manufacturing licence, earlier than sanctions had been once more tightened at the start of the second Trump administration in March this yr.
PDVSA, the state-owned oil firm that has dominated Venezuela’s exploitation of its huge oil reserves, has confronted different challenges, together with ageing infrastructure, underinvestment and mismanagement, in addition to the results of worldwide sanctions.
