Regulatory approval of the sale to Amber Energy would unlock investment, modernize refineries and push fuel prices down.

By Greg Goff and Paul Foster
April 23, 2026 5:53 pm ET

While Americans worry about gasoline prices, one of the country’s largest refining companies is languishing in regulatory limbo. But there’s good news: A single government approval could unlock private investment in this company, Citgo Petroleum, modernizing its refineries and putting downward pressure on fuel prices.

Citgo is the fifth-largest independent refiner in the U.S., with more than 800,000 barrels a day of crude processing capacity across three refineries in Texas, Louisiana and Illinois. Venezuela owns Citgo, but a federal court in 2023 authorized the sale of its parent company’s shares so that the proceeds could be used to compensate companies whose assets were stolen by the Venezuelan government under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.

Last November, a federal court cleared the way to end years of underinvestment in Citgo and uncertainty over its ownership by approving the company’s sale to Amber Energy, a team of experienced American refinery operators with a turnaround plan.

This transaction—which is fully financed and backed by a broad consortium of American investors—would resolve about $9 billion of legal claims against Venezuela. This would deliver on President Trump’s promise to compensate those companies whose capital, technology and expertise helped develop Venezuela’s heavy crude industry in the first place.

Compensating the victims of Venezuela’s expropriations would give large energy companies the confidence they need to invest in Venezuela. It would also benefit Americans, as Amber Energy plans to invest billions in Citgo to expand its capacity.

Our plans call for a roughly $1 billion expansion of the refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. According to our estimates, this expansion would increase crude-oil processing capacity by up to 125,000 barrels a day by the end of 2030, generating up to 1.9 billion gallons a year of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined products. The additional 29,000 barrels a day of jet fuel produced would support U.S. military requirements, an urgent national-security issue highlighted earlier this week by Mr. Trump.

A new $1 billion refined-products pipeline from Corpus Christi to the Austin and San Antonio markets would relieve supply bottlenecks in the fastest-growing region in the country. At Citgo’s refinery in Lemont, Ill., a $500 million expansion of a coker (an oil refinery processing unit) would produce additional diesel and asphalt—two products in short supply across the Midwest—while lowering costs for American truckers and infrastructure projects. A $250 million upgrade at the Lake Charles, La., facility would increase premium gasoline production.

All told, Amber plans to invest more than $11 billion modernizing and expanding Citgo’s operations—more than double the capital Venezuela has invested over the past decade.

These investments would advance the Trump administration’s energy agenda by creating American jobs, providing price relief at the pump, enhancing security in the supply of refined products, and improving the U.S. energy trade balance.

The cost of further delay is real. Citgo’s safety performance has deteriorated under years of ownership limbo. The company last year recorded its worst safety year since 2020, and the trend so far in 2026 is worse. Deferred investment and management uncertainty in the industry are directly linked to rising incident rates at industrial facilities of this scale, and declining safety can lead to events—oil spills, explosions, life-threatening injuries or worse—that no one wants to see.

More than 4,000 American workers depend on Citgo for their livelihoods, and more than 2,000 independently owned gasoline stations—many of them family businesses—depend on the company’s stability and supply. These workers and small-business owners can’t afford further delay.

We have a plan and are ready to get to work. Investors are committed. All we need is approval for the sale from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Treasury agency that enforces sanctions against targeted foreign regimes like Venezuela.

The Trump administration can make progress toward American energy dominance by letting American operators do what they do best—invest, build and strengthen this country’s energy future.

Mr. Goff is CEO of Amber Energy and the former chairman and CEO of refinery company Andeavor. Mr. Foster is Amber’s chairman and the founder and former executive chairman of Western Refining Company Inc.