Elliott Unit Takes Pole Position in Citgo Auction; EPIC Pipeline Also on Block

An affiliate of Elliott Investment Management has moved into the lead position in the court-ordered auction of PDV Holding, the parent company of Citgo Petroleum. A filing by court officer Robert Pincus stated that Amber Energy’s revised offer surpassed a previously favoured proposal from Dalinar Energy, a unit of miner Gold Reserve. Dalinar now has three business days to improve its $7.4 billion bid or risk losing preferred-bidder status ahead of a sale hearing scheduled to begin on 15 September in Delaware. Details of the higher Amber bid were not fully disclosed, but earlier court documents show the Elliott vehicle is prepared to pay $5.86 billion in cash to creditors and settle a further $2.86 billion of claims tied to a defaulted Venezuelan bond secured by Citgo equity. The auction is designed to satisfy roughly $20 billion in judgments against Venezuela and state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela arising from past expropriations and debt defaults. Separately, the owners of the EPIC Crude pipeline—which moves more than 600,000 barrels of oil a day from the Permian and Eagle Ford basins to the U.S. Gulf Coast—are weighing a sale that could value the conduit at about $3 billion including debt, according to people familiar with the matter. Investment firm Ares Management controls around 45 % of the asset, while Diamondback Energy and Kinetik hold the remainder and have signalled openness to divesting their stakes.