Originally Posted By: y_p_w
Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi
This is only tangentially related to the OP, but some people don't know that Citgo is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company, PDVSA. Government control of PDVSA is so tight that only supporters of the late Hugo Chavez' political party can be employed there.
Just an FYI...
Not sure if that's the case for CITGO in the US. They would have a tough time trying to enforce any political loyalty test in the US.
I do recall there were threats to perhaps cut them off from the CITGO refineries in the US. Venezuela has some of the thickest crude oil anywhere, and few refineries can handle it. They were pretty indignant about it in Venezuela, claiming that they'd eventually add capacity to their domestic refineries. Of course they have a spotty safety record after Chavez fired everyone who wasn't a loyalist.
Sorry, didn't mean to imply that the political party test applies in the USA! Just can't hurt to be aware of where the Citgo profits are going, although maybe you could argue on humanitarian grounds that the people there could use whatever help they can get now...even if it is through their odious ruling party.
To put a further twist on things, it is possible that the Russian state-owned oil firm Rosneft could take control of Citgo if the PDVSA defaults on $3billion worth of loans from that entity. Wouldn't that be a freakin mess to have a major US oil company run by the Kremlin? Wonder what the Trump administration would do...