CITGO Petroleum said it will keep its headquarters in Houston, Texas where it has been since 2004, despite speculation that it would move the offices of its top executives to the Caribbean following the appointment of a new chief executive.
CITGO President and CEO Asdrúbal Chávez recently conducted his first corporate meeting with top senior executives and management to review the Company's 2017 results during which he announced the company will stay in Houston.
The future of CITGO, the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), the national oil company of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, has seemed uncertain since the arrest in November of six of CITGO's top executives on corruption charges by government of President Nicolas Maduro.
The Maduro government later named Asdrúbal Chávez, a cousin of the late Venezuelan president and Maduro mentor Hugo Chávez, as the CITGO CEO. It was reported that following the leadership change, CITGO was considering moving its headquarters from Houston to Aruba, where CITGO also has a refinery (in San Nicolas, Aruba).
Asdrúbal Chávez, a former Venezuela oil minister, plans to unveil his vision for the future of the company over the coming months, CITGO said.
CITGO Petroleum Corporation began back in 1910 when Henry L. Doherty created the Cities Service Company. Occidental Petroleum bought Cities Service in 1982, and CITGO was incorporated as a wholly owned refining, marketing and transportation subsidiary in the spring of the following year. Then, in August, 1983, CITGO was sold to The Southland Corporation. In September, 1986, Southland sold a 50 percent interest in CITGO to PDVSA, who acquired the remaining half of CITGO in January, 1990.
Prior to 2004, CITGO's headquarters was located in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
CITGO employs about 4,000 people in the U.S., including more than 800 in Houston. The company has roughly 160 branded gas stations in the Houston area, and about 5,500 nationwide. CITGO owns oil refineries located in Lake Charles, La., Corpus Christi, Texas and Lemont, Ill.
