Citgo Petroleum, the U.S. unit of state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, will not be sold, Economy and Finance Minister Rodolfo Marco recently said. "Venezuela will stay with Citgo and continue making investments in its refineries ... the sale of Citgo has been ruled out and the president confirmed this," the minister said in an interview published in the Caracas daily El Universal.

Reports surfaced this past August that a sale of Citgo might be in the works, when former Energy Minister and PDVSA chief Rafael Ramirez said he would unload the U.S. unit if a "convenient" offer came along. Ramirez, who is now Venezuela's foreign minister, estimated that Citgo might be worth "a little more" than $10 billion.

Citgo said in a July 29 filing that PDVSA was looking for a buyer, threatening to undermine bondholders and other creditors by removing a sovereign asset that could be seized in the U.S. in the event of a default.

Citgo, founded in 1910 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, has a network of service stations and operates refineries in Texas, Illinois and Louisiana with a capacity of about 750,000 barrels per day.

PDVSA acquired a 50 percent interest in 1986 in Citgo and the remainder of the stock four years later.