CARACAS (AP) — Venezuela’s National Assembly, overwhelmingly pro-government, on Tuesday rejected Washington’s decision not to block the auction of shares in Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company. The operation is part of a compensation of 1,400 million dollars for the losses caused to the Canadian mining firm Crystallex after the expropriation of its concessions and investments in the country.

The House-approved deal warns that “any transition in Treasury Department License 42 is void and illegal and will not be recognized by the Venezuelan state” or its legislature.

The US Treasury Department has not yet issued a license to complete a sale. Since 2021, Washington had annually extended a protective measure that prevented Venezuela’s creditors from selling Citgo’s US refineries to honor their debts.

With this twist in the US decision, creditors’ claims can be settled by negotiation or by auctioning Citgo’s assets. According to the Venezuelan government, the maneuver was communicated to a federal court in Delaware by the Department of Justice.

Citgo has been a subsidiary of the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) since the 1980s. It is made up of three refineries in Louisiana, Texas and Illinois, as well as a network of pipelines that cross 23 states. It contributes between 5 and 10% of the gasoline consumed in the United States.

Maduro offered Citgo as collateral in 2016 in a debt swap.

A Delaware District Court judge issued a ruling in favor of Crystallex on January 14, 2021, authorizing the sale of the shares of the Venezuelan subsidiary and considering the appointment of a person to oversee the transfer of ownership of these shares. titles, outside any control by the Venezuelan authorities and PDVSA.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, now deceased, withdrew gold concessions and took over the operations of Crystallex and many other international companies, accusing the miners of harming the environment and violating workers’ rights.

In early 2009, Chávez announced the Venezuelan government’s takeover of the operations of Canadian companies in the state of Bolívar, a mineral-rich region with one of the largest gold deposits on the continent.

The Delaware judge ignored motions filed by Citgo Petroleum and its parent company, PDV Holding (PDVH), to block the embargo.

Crystallex spent several years trying to negotiate an agreement with Venezuela, before presenting its case to a World Bank arbitration panel, which sided with the Canadian firm. The Maduro government, unsuccessfully, has vehemently appealed these and other legal actions.

The list of creditors is long. Venezuela also owes tens of thousands of dollars in bonds it has defaulted on for years.

Bondholders want to sell Citgo to collect what they are owed after Venezuela defaulted.

The Maduro government has repeatedly accused Washington and the United Platform, as a sector of the Venezuelan opposition is called, of “theft” of Citgo.

Venezuela’s administration lost control of Citgo after Donald Trump’s government recognized then-National Assembly speaker, opposition lawmaker Juan Guaidó, as Venezuela’s legitimate president in 2019, following re-election of Maduro in elections deemed fraudulent by United States and other countries.

International support for Guaidó, one of his main assets against Maduro, has dwindled considerably over the years and even his former allies last December ended the interim government. Instead, they appointed a special commission to head the shadow government he was leading and they now have control of Citgo.