Houston-based multinational energy corporation ConocoPhillips is asking a court in the Dutch Antilles to give it control of offshore facilities operated by Venezuela’s state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), according to the Associated Press and Reuters.
ConocoPhillips is trying to recoup more than $2 billion from a decade-old dispute it has ongoing with Venezuela, the South American nation that is in economic turmoil despite sitting on the world’s biggest oil reserves.
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) awarded $2.4 billion in arbitration to Conoco, hence the company’s moves to seize assets of that value.
Conoco temporarily seized about 4 million barrels of crude that PDVSA stored on the island of St Eustatius. Then it took control of a terminal on Bonaire. And now it is attempting to grab PDVSA’s assets at the Isla refinery in Curacao.
In response, PDVSA has had to move several oil tankers away from the region while others are sitting idly by in dock.
