Venezuela seeks 4-month pause in auction of shares in Citgo parent

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Lawyers representing Venezuela on Tuesday requested a four-month pause in a U.S. court-ordered auction of shares in a parent of Houston-based oil refiner Citgo Petroleum to pay creditors, according to a filing in U.S. District court, Delaware.

Venezuela-owned Citgo is the crown jewel of the South American country's assets overseas. Creditors have targeted the refining company as they seek compensation for late President Hugo Chavez' nationalization wave and President Nicolas Maduro's failed debt payments.

The court was scheduled to disclose the auction's winning bidder and sale terms on Monday. But there was no court filing on a winner by Tuesday morning.

The court officer overseeing the auction, Robert Pincus, did not reply to requests for comment.

"Complications in the sale process threaten to undercut" the court's desire to obtain a high price for Citgo-parent shares for creditors seeking more than $21 billion in claims, the lawyers wrote.

They cited the July disputed presidential election in Venezuela, which has sent the nation into political chaos, and recent parallel lawsuits introduced in U.S. court by holders of Venezuelan bonds seeking compensation for defaults.

The rulings involving 2020 PDVSA bondholders "risk unnecessarily diverting sale proceeds away from" Delaware court creditors, the Venezuelan lawyers said in the motion before the court.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga, editing by Gary McWilliams and)

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