Guaido names Citgo CEO, debt committee: Correction

Corrects position held by Luisa Palacios, names current chief executive.

Venezuela's political opposition has appointed a new chief executive of Houston-based refiner Citgo, a nominal subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned PdV, at a time of growing uncertainty over the company's fate.

The nominee to head Citgo is Carlos Jorda, a veteran downstream executive who served as Citgo's chairman in 1999-2002.

His appointment, confirmed today by National Assembly president Juan Guaido during an assembly session in Caracas, will be ratified by the "ad hoc" board of Citgo that was appointed by the opposition shortly after Guaido declared himself Venezuela's interim president in January.

Luisa Palacios will remain chair of Citgo's board. Rick Esser, a longtime Citgo executive and the most prominent managerial holdover from the previous board, has served as interim chief executive since February.

Jorda retired from PdV in the early 2000s and remained in the US where since May 2006 he has been a member of the board of Tennessee-based refiner Delek US Holdings.

Jorda also worked with consultancy Gaffney Cline from May 2009 to November 2017, advising clients on refining and marketing projects.

The US Delaware Chancery Court recently upheld Guaido's legal authority to appoint Citgo executives.

Guaido also named ad hoc central bank president Ricardo Villasmil to a new consultative commission on renegotiating Venezuela's debt. Other commission members include Venezuela's former planning minister and Harvard professor Ricardo Hausmann, Venezuelan economic consultant Alejandro Grisanti, National Assembly deputies Omar Barboza, Carlos Paparoni and Andres Eloy Camejo, and ad hoc attorney general Jose Ignacio Hernandez.

The government of President Nicolas Maduro maintains that Guaido's self-declared interim government is conspiring with the US government to steal Venezuela's foreign assets, including Citgo. The refiner is the target of multiple creditors, including defunct Canadian mining company Crystallex which is now owned by New York-based Tenor Capital Management, and PdV 2020 bondholders who have a lien on 50.1pc of the shares of Citgo. The rest of the shares are pledged to Russia's state-controlled Rosneft.

US sanctions and an executive order issued in early August have so far prevented the creditors from acting on their claims to Citgo.

In today's session, Guaido also named diplomatic envoys to Israel and Greece.