On August 13, the National Assembly endorsed the appointment of chemical engineer Carlos Jorda as executive director of Citgo, which was made by the company’s board. The move came only two weeks after the decision by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals to ratify the Federal Court’s decision authorizing Canadian company Crystallex to appropriate Citgo’s assets to collect a debt of USD 1.4 billion.

Jorda, who has a very long history in the hydrocarbon sector, had already been president of the company between 1999 and 2002. In 2006 he moved to the direction of the DeleK US refinery. He also worked as an energy consultant for Gaffney, Cline & Associates until 2016. 

Regarding the appointment, Juan Guaidó said “we were looking for a president for Citgo to be able to safeguard and generate audits of what have been 20 years of mismanagement (…) Carlos Jordá will be helping in that process of safeguarding Venezuela’s assets”. For its part, the Comptroller General of the Republic, Elvis Amoroso, denounced the decision as invalid.