Founded 115 years ago in Oklahoma, Citgo Petroleum is a quintessentially American oil and gas brand. Except, of course, that it’s been quietly and entirely owned by Venezuela since 1990.Now, the decade-long legal saga over the fate of the Houston-based oil refiner could soon end through a drawn-out, legal auction to pay off creditors who lost oil assets, mining rights, and more when they were expropriated under Venezuela’s former socialist ruler, Hugo Chavez. The bidders do not include the usual suspects, s ...

The fate of Citgo, the jewel in the crown of Venezuela’s PDVSA, may be decided by the end of this week. The Venezuelan state-owned oil company may lose its prized asset. The creditors that fueled the process that led to the auction for Citgo may be left with empty hands, as well. The U.S.-based refining company used to have a total processing capacity of over 800,000 barrels daily, the biggest U.S. outlet for Venezuelan heavy crude. Yet in 2019, amid tightening U.S. sanctions on the government in Caracas, ...