By Daphne Psaledakis
WASHINGTON, March 19 (Reuters) – The United States has extended a license that protects Venezuela-owned refiner Citgo Petroleum from creditors through May 5, according to a posting on Thursday on the Treasury Department’s website.
The extension comes a day after Washington issued a general license broadly authorizing U.S. companies to do business with Citgo’s ultimate parent, Caracas-headquartered Venezuelan state-run oil company PDVSA.
The general license is seen as a key step to encourage investment and further oil output in Venezuela, and also reinforces U.S. protection of Houston-based Citgo and its parent companies overseas, which are the crown jewels of Venezuela’s foreign assets. Citgo is the eighth-largest U.S. refiner.
Washington has been easing sanctions on Venezuela since U.S. forces captured President Nicolas Maduro in January, with the U.S. government taking control of the OPEC country’s oil sales proceeds through a fund.
The license on Thursday extending protections for Citgo comes as the refiner is expected to be taken over by an affiliate of hedge fund Elliott Investment Management. That acquisition follows a sale order by a Delaware judge late last year as part of the court-ordered auction of its parent, PDV Holding, to pay billions of dollars to Venezuelan-linked creditors.
However, the auction’s winner still needs a “specific license” from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the department said on Wednesday, so current U.S. protections over the refiner and affiliates can be lifted for the judge’s sale order to be fully executed.
The government of interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, which was recently recognized by Washington, has called on the Trump administration to keep Citgo in Venezuelan hands.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Marianna Parraga; Editing by Katharine Jackson, David Ljunggren, Rod Nickel)
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