Houston, June 26, 2023 – PDV Holding, Inc. successfully recovered a stock certificate representing 49.9% of the outstanding shares of stock in its subsidiary CITGO Holding Inc. from an arm of Russian-controlled oil company Rosneft on Wednesday, June 21, 2023.
This event brings to a close years of effort to recover the certificate of the shares, which had been pledged in violation of Venezuelan law by PDV Holding and PDVSA officials appointed during the Nicolas Maduro regime for a $1.5 billion "prepayment" loan to PDV Holding's sister company PDVSA Petróleo, S.A. in 2016. Under the prepayment agreement, PDVSA Petróleo was required to repay the loan with shipments of crude oil to Rosneft Trading over a period of four years.
In May 2023 OFAC issued a license to PDV Holding authorizing the transfer of the stock certificate and the termination of Rosneft Trading's lien, and shortly thereafter, in response to a demand from PDV Holding, Rosneft Trading agreed to return the certificate, which was being held in escrow in New York. The stock certificate was recovered on June 21, 2023, and is now in the possession of PDV Holding at its corporate headquarters in Houston, Texas.