Page 8 - LatAmOil Week 34 2021

LatAmOil DOMINICAN REPUBLIC LatAmOil

PdVSA surrenders 49% stake in Refidomsa

refinery under debt-for-equity swap deal

VENEZUELA’S government has success- bonds’ face value.
fully wrapped up its first debt-for-equity deal According to the statement sent to Bloomb-
since the imposition of economic sanctions erg, the government was not involved in
by the US government. According to a report negotiations on the settlement. Nevertheless,
from Bloomberg, the deal allowed Venezuela’s it benefited from the deal, as Patsa set up the
national oil company (NOC) PdVSA to surren- agreement with the Venezuelan debtors in a way
der its stake in an oil refinery in the Dominican that allowed for the nearly immediate sale of the
Republic as compensation for defaulted bond stake to the state.
payments. Dominican officials have said that the debt-
The NOC has been involved in a legal conflict for-equity deal will not be liable to US sanctions.
over securities with a face value of $360.9mn, Officials in Washington have already given a
some of them issued by PdVSA and others by green light to the arrangement, Finance Minis-
the Venezuelan government. The bonds were ter Jochi Vicente told reporters last week.
owned by Patsa, an investment vehicle estab- “With this transaction, the Dominican
lished by the Rizek family in the Dominican state once again controls 100% of the refinery’s
Republic. Patsa has been seeking relief because subscribed capital and has absolute control of
it did not receive the scheduled payments on the this very important company within the state’s
bonds. assets,” he said. ™
The investment company finally obtained
that relief in mid-August, Bloomberg reported
earlier this week. Citing a statement submitted
by the Dominican Republic’s Finance Ministry
in response to questions, the news agency said
that Patsa had agreed to swap the defaulted
securities for PdVSA’s 49% stake in Refidomsa,
a 34,000 barrel per day (bpd) oil refinery near
Santo Domingo.
Officials in Caracas accepted the offer, so the
parties carried out the exchange on August 19.
Patsa then promptly sold the equity stake in the
refinery to the government of the Dominican
Republic, which owns the remaining 51% of the
refinery. Dominican authorities paid $88.1mn
for this asset, equivalent to about 24.4% of the The refinery has a capacity of 34,000 bpd (Photo: Refidomsa)

GUYANA
ExxonMobil, partners agree on extension

for drilling of second well at Kaieteur

EXXONMOBIL (US) and its partners in the The companies have all agreed to adopt the
Kaieteur block offshore Guyana have agreed new date so that ExxonMobil can continue to
to push the deadline for drilling their second analyse data from the licence area and to “[inte-
exploration well back by seven months. grate] extensive multi-play drilling results and
According to a statement from Westmount comprehensive data collection programmes
Energy, an indirect investor in Kaieteur, the into regional petroleum system models and the
partners are now saying that they expect to sink prospect nomination decision,” the statement
the second well by March 22, 2021. said.

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 34 26•August•2021