By Gary McWilliams and Marianna Parraga
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Oil refiner CVR Energy, controlled by billionaire investor Carl Icahn, has submitted a binding bid in an ongoing auction of shares in the parent company of Venezuelan-owned Citgo Petroleum, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Icahn controls about 66% of the shares of Sugar Land, Texas-based CVR. CVR operates two refineries in the US, the 115,000 barrels per day (bpd) Coffeyville in Kansas and the 75,000 bpd Wynnewood in Oklahoma.
A US court in Delaware is auctioning off the shares to pay creditors who have $21.3 billion in claims against Venezuela for defaults and expropriations. So far, the court has accepted proposals from CVR, trading company Vitol and others as part of the historic sale process of one of the parents of Citgo, the seventh largest oil refiner in the US.
CVR is working with Wells Fargo investment bankers to raise financing for its offering, the people said. The company is supported by Icahn Enterprises in its bid, the people added.
Icahn Enterprises and CVR CEO David Lamp declined to comment. Wells Fargo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CVR’s midcontinent oil refineries would form a solid geographic match with Citgo’s refineries in Texas, Louisiana and Illinois, one of the people familiar with the offering said.
“The supply advantage that CVR has is its synergies (with Citgo),” the person said. “Citgo is primarily a Gulf Coast refiner and CVI operates in the center of the country.”
(Reporting by Gary McWilliams and Marianna Parraga in Houston, additional reporting by David French; Editing by David Gregorio)
