A consortium led by energy and commodities company Vitol has placed a bid exceeding $10bn for Citgo Petroleum's parent company PDV Holding.

The bid comes as competition intensifies for Venezuela's most prized foreign asset, reported Reuters, citing two sources familiar with the offer.

Submitted during the final hours of an auction organised by a US court, the bid includes about $5bn in cash and the remainder in credit bids for up to 14 claims.

The auction was overseen by a Delaware court officer and aims to settle claims from creditors seeking nearly $19bn in compensation after Venezuela's asset expropriation and debt defaults.

US refiner Citgo's 807,000bpd refining network and associated facilities are PDV Holding's sole assets.

The Vitol-led offer also proposes approximately $2bn for defaulted Venezuelan bondholders.

Despite being the highest known bid, Vitol's proposal is not guaranteed to win, as financial robustness and certainty of deal closure are also under scrutiny.

After a previous bid by Vitol was outdone by a $7.3bn offer from an Elliott Investment Management affiliate, Vitol returned with a new bid earlier this year. However, Red Tree Investments won that round with a $3.7bn offer and an agreement to pay bondholders.

The current bidding round, which concluded on 1 July, saw new participants and improved offers following recent court rulings that allowed the auction for PDV Holding to proceed.

Among the late submissions was an all-cash offer of approximately $8bn from a consortium led by Black Lion Capital Advisors and revised proposals from a subsidiary of Gold Reserve.

Despite the high stakes and last-minute bidding war, Citgo's valuation may be affected by its recent performance downturn, with profits falling to $305m last year from $2bn in 2023.

In May 2025, Vitol entered a term sale and purchase agreement with Oman LNG.