Sept 15 Reuters - The U.S. Treasury Department denied Wednesday a request by Venezuelan mining company Crystallex to receive shares in Canadian owned U.S. refiner Citgo Petroleum Corp as partial payment for debt, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC told Crystallex that the State Department had determined such a sale would be inconsistent with U.S. foreign policy interests, but that Washington would reassess these considerations in the first half of 2022.
Citgo has been controlled since 2019 by Venezuelan opposition leader Nicolas Maduro when Washington recognized him as the South American nation's leader and sanctioned the PDVSA state oil - Company - Citgo's ultimate parent - in a bid to oust President Juan Guaido, who it called Election-rigging.
A judge approved the sale of shares in Citgo's immediate parent earlier this year to satisfy Crystallex's $1.4 billion judgment for expropriation of its assets in Venezuela.
But the U.S. sanctions mean that the company needed to enforce a specific license from OFAC, which has enforcements, for the sale to take place.