Conoco receives $ 345 million payment from Venezuela



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The US oil company ConocoPhillips announced Thursday it received $ 345 million in cash and raw materials during the last quarter of the Venezuelan national oil company PDVSA, under an agreement reached after Conoco confiscated some of its assets in the Caribbean.

Proceeds from the sale are part of the first installment of an agreement to comply with an arbitration award that awarded Conoco $ 2,000 million for breaking the South American oil deal.

The payment, which became known thanks to the company's third-quarter earnings report, came several months after Conoco seized local courts and obtained the right to seize most of the inventory, logistics and other assets. Petróleos de Venezuela storage facility. Venezuela in the Caribbean to impose an arbitral award in April.

PDVSA has not responded to requests for comment.

The state oil company must pay the bonds due in 2020 in the coming days. PDVSA used the assets of Citgo Petroleum, its US-based refinery, as a guarantee of 51% of the 2020 bond.

Conoco said Thursday expecting to receive the $ 155 million missing during the first payment of PDVSA this quarter. A spokesman for the US oil company did not specify how much of the initial payment was effective and whether the products received included raw or refined products.

It is at the end of August that the US oil company has announced an agreement with the Venezuelan state oil company to recover $ 2,000 million as a result of the dispute over the Expropriation of part of its assets in the country.

PDVSA then agreed to pay $ 500 million in a 90-day period after signing the agreement and the rest quarterly in four and a half years.

"Following this agreement, ConocoPhillips has agreed to suspend its actions before the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)," the Houston-based oil company said in a statement.

In April, the ICC arbitral tribunal ordered PDVSA to pay $ 2.040 billion to ConocoPhillips after the unplanned dissolution of a mixed oil production agreement.

The announced agreement is related to the expropriation of the oil company's investments in several projects in the Orinoco oil belt in Venezuela in 2007, as part of the nationalization of the sector by the late president Hugo Chávez.

PDVSA is also preparing a $ 949 million bond installment that will expire on October 29. The plan to pay the coupon and part of the 2020 debt capital of PDVSA would be an exception for the government of Nicolás Maduro, which has accumulated nearly $ 7,000 million in default payments to investors. This bond is backed by a majority stake in Citgo, which means that a default would allow bondholders to claim the crown jewel of Venezuela's assets in the United States.

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