According to reports, negotiations are underway between the Venezuelan authorities and Dominican businesspeople for the purchase of Venezuelan shares in the Dominican National Refinery. The refinery used to be co-owned with Shell before it sold out to the Dominican Republic. The refinery controls around 60% of the fuel market in the Dominican Republic.
Venezuela owns 49% of the refinery and its sale could mean US$200 million for Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
As reported in Listin Diario, when Venezuela purchased 49% of the shares from the Dominican government in 2010, the company paid US$133.4 million. The Dominican government controls 51% of the stock in the refinery.
The operation follows the Dominican Republic’s recent payment of 98% of its debt for oil purchases Venezuela at a 52% discount, in a sovereign bond operation. The DR paid US$1.93 billion for a US$4.12 billion debt.
As reported, US$28 million is being invested in modernizing the refinery to increase refining capacity from 30,500 to 34,000 barrels a day.
As reported in Listin Diario, Venezuela’s economic vice president Army General Rodolfo Marco Torres is in charge of the negotiations. Torres appears as responsible for opening two secret accounts with US$9.5 billion and US$2.2 billion on behalf of Venezuela in the Swiss branch of HSBC Private Banking in 2005. At the time he was president of the Bank of the Treasury of Venezuela.
Listin reports that the treasurer in Venezuela at the time was Alejandro Andrade Cedeno, who was deputy minister of Finance and president of the National Development Bank (Bandex). At the time, according to the newspaper, sources said that Andrade lost his influence in the Hugo Chavez regime and moved to La Romana.
http://www.listindiario.com/la-republica/2015/2/16/356451/Venezuela-podria-vender-49-de-acciones-en-Refineria-Dominicana
http://www.diariolibre.com/noticias/2015/02/14/i1013011_avanza-renovacin-planta-refinera-vida-til-subira-aos.html