A U.S. court on Friday approved claims by 17 Venezuela-linked creditors, including ConocoPhillips, Rusoro Mining and Koch Industries, to get proceeds from a coming auction of shares in the parent of Venezuela-owned oil refiner Citgo Petroleum to satisfy claims for expropriations and debt defaults.
The list, which reduced the scope of the claims to $20.8 billion from the $24 billion sought by creditors, comes after a court officer excluded arbitration awards and court rulings that had failed to satisfy the court's requirements on time.
Creditors have flocked to a U.S. court in Delaware to press claims that are almost double Citgo's $11 billion to $13 billion value. The Houston-based refiner operates an 807,000-barrel-per-day refining network, 38 terminals, six pipelines and supplies 4,200 independent retailers.
First bids for the shares are due on Monday with a second bidding round to come later this year. A final decision on the winners is still months away, with awards requiring approval by the U.S. Treasury Department, which has protected Citgo from creditors since 2019.
A board supervising the refiner has been in payment negotiations with U.S. oil producer ConocoPhillips, Canadian miner Crystallex Corp and organized bondholders for over a year, but no settlements have been announced.
Citgo declined to comment on the court decision.
Friday's decision gives priority in payments to Canadian miner Crystallex, which brought the case, Tidewater, Conoco, O-I Glass, and Huntington Ingalls, the filing shows. Citgo has been valued in he past at between $11 billion and $13 billion.
The auction, which could lead to one of the largest court sales in U.S. history, was launched in October by U.S. Judge Leonard Stark after he received a green light from the U.S. Treasury.
Crystallex first introduced its $990-million claim against Venezuela in 2017, but U.S. sanctions on Venezuela prevented it from collecting.
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