"Venezuela's PDVSA in oil deal with firm part-owned by Florida Republican"

"CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA [PDVSA.UL] has signed a deal with little-known U.S. energy firm Erepla, partly owned by a prominent Florida Republican, to help increase the socialist-run country’s plummeting crude oil output, the company said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-oil-idUSKCN1P11EM

Erepla Services LLC, with an undisclosed stake held by Republican Harry Sargeant III and which Delaware state records show was only registered in November, said it plans to invest up to $500 million to increase production at three Venezuelan oil fields in exchange for a portion of the crude produced.


"Sargeant maintained business ties to PDVSA in the early 2000s through a company that he partly owned called Trigeant, whose Corpus Christi, Texas-based refinery processed Venezuelan crude into asphalt, according to court records.

PDVSA won arbitration claims against Trigeant in 2006 and 2008 totaling $52 million for unpaid crude cargoes, and received a $17 million payment, according to court records.

Before having paid the full amount, Trigeant sold the refinery to a third party.

PDVSA won a court order blocking the sale, arguing that it was a fraudulent transfer meant to prevent it from collecting on the arbitration judgment because Sargeant had a controlling stake in the buyer. Trigeant later declared bankruptcy"

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"The largest U.S. receiver of Venezuelan crude
last year was
PDVSA's refining unit Citgo Petroleum with 175,873 bpd,
followed
by Valero Energy with 166,099 bpd and Chevron Corp

 with 83,041 bpd, Eikon data showed."

https://www.reuters.com/article/oil-venezuela-usa/venezuelan-crude-sales-to-us-drop-to-lowest-in-almost-30-years-idUSL1N1Z415R


https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-venezuela-oil/