UPDATED 05/15/2020 – The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury removed Nynas from its list of sanctioned entities yesterday. Nynas issued a statement claiming that PDVSA (the majority shareholder of Nynas) had “…reduced its ownership percentage in Nynas to 15 percent of all currently issued shares. The 35 percent sold by PDVSA is now controlled by an independent Swedish foundation without the influence of PDVSA…” The issue is that this action likely violated Venezuelan law: Maduro cannot simply dispose of Venezuela’s assets without proper approval.
Sources familiar with the procedures informed this site that Dentons, the legal advisor to the regime of Nicolás Maduro, was involved in negotiating the OFAC license and the subsequent sale of PDVSA’s stake to a new “independent Swedish foundation,” where PDVSA/Nynas management will have a say. The goal was to position that 35% stake elsewhere, to facilitate the completion of the reorganization process that was being hampered precisely by PDVSA’s majority stake in Nynas, until PDVSA regains control, transfers it to an unblocked party, or sells.
There’s a rather interesting angle regarding how the revenues of this new foundation could be used to fund grants to the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA). As if Venezuela were in a position to be financing research/studies for anyone in Sweden.
Requests for comments have been sent to Dentons and IVA. UPDATED ON 05/15/2020: IVA sent a response claiming that it has no knowledge of Nynas’ reorganization process, or why it has been mentioned in that context.
Nynas has faced an uphill battle since the Treasury sanctions against PDVSA and its subsidiaries came into effect. The fact that it obtained most of its crude oil from Petrozamora, a joint venture between PDVSA and Gazprombank Latin America Ventures B.V., further complicated its operations, given that Gazprombank Latin America Ventures B.V. is 1) also a sanctioned entity by the Treasury; 2) its Russian shareholders – GPB Energy – are also on the Treasury’s SDN list; 3) its Venezuelan shareholders (Francisco Convit, Orlando Alvarado, and Alejandro Betancourt) are wanted or part of active criminal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice.