Refiner Owned by Billionaire Icahn Bids for Citgo Shares

CVR Energy, a refining company owned by Carl Icahn, is among the bidders for shares in the parent company of Citgo, PDV Holding, Reuters has reported, citing unnamed sources.

CVR Energy operates two refineries, one in Kansas and one in Oklahoma. Carl Icahn holds a 66% stake in the company. The refiner is working with Wells Fargo to raise the money for its bid, the Reuters sources said.

Citgo is the seventh-largest refiner in the United States with a total capacity topping 800,000 barrels per day (bpd). It has plants in Texas, Louisiana, and Illinois, along with pipelines and a gasoline distribution network that supplies 4,200 outlets in the United States.

The sale process of shares to pay creditors and claimants against Venezuela’s oil asset appropriation and debts owed by Citgo was launched by the Delaware court in October 2023.

A first bidding round with non-binding offers ended earlier this year, and the deadline for submitting of binding bids in second bidding round was July 1.

Overall, creditors and claimants have sought to recoup at courts in Delaware a total of $24 billion in claims and arbitration awards against Venezuela.

However, in the first round of the auction the highest bid was only $7.3 billion, which is just one-third of the value of the claims approved by the court, Reuters reported in March this year. Two months later, the publication reported that unless bids in the second round come closer to $10 billion, Caracas would seek a third round of offers.

The deadline for bid submission is July 15 and the name of the winning bidder, if there is one, should be announced at the end of the month. According to a representative of the court officer overseeing the auction, there are competitive bids in this round. Per earlier reports, bidders also include activist fund Elliott Investment Management.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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