New Citgo CEO officially installed as Venezuela makes more arrests
Houston-based Citgo Petroleum officially named a cousin of the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as its new chief executive Thursday as a purge of Venezuela’s energy establishment reached the top tiers of government.
Asdrubal Chavez, a former oil minister, was installed as the Citgo CEO following the arrests last week of Citgo’s previous CEO and five other executives on corruption charges. On Thursday, officials of the government of President Nicolas Maduro said they’ve made more arrests, imprisoning the former heads of the Venezuelan oil ministry and the state-owned oil company, PDVSA.
More than 60 oil industry managers and officials have been arrested in recent months. The moves are widely seen as an effort by Maduro, Hugo Chavez’s successor, to further consolidate power in a country that is crumbling economically amid growing poverty and political unrest.
Citgo is the U.S. subsidiary of PDVSA, which acquired the company nearly 30 years ago. Citgo now acts as the U.S. refining and gasoline marketing arm of Venezuela’s oil company.
Citgo employs about 4,000 people in the United States, including more than 800 in Houston. The company has roughly 160 branded gas stations in the Houston area, and about 5,500 nationwide. Citgo owns oil refineries in Corpus Christi, Lake Charles, La., and Illinois.
In announcing the new chief executive, Citgo did not mention last week’s arrests nor did it note Chavez’s relationship to the late president. Five of the six Citgo executives who were arrested are U.S. citizens. The Trump administration said it is seeking access to the arrested executives under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations
In a nation where corruption has been endemic for decades, the veracity of the accusations against executives and officials is difficult to judge. But the arrests further a power struggle within the ruling party as Maduro prepares to run for re-election in 2018.
As for Chavez, he is a politician and former Venezuelan oil minister. Citgo declined to comment on whether he will live in Houston or lead the company from Venezuela.
He’s a 1979 chemical engineering graduate from the Universidad de los Andes who started his career at the El Palito Refinery in Venezuela. He worked his way up to vice president of refining at PDVSA, and then to oil minister from 2014 to the beginning of 2016.
Venezuela, which sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves, is also the third largest exporter of oil to the United States and a key supplier to Gulf Coast refineries that are built to process heavier grades of crude, such as those produced in Venezuela.