Exxon director joins Elliott group in pursuit of Citgo Petroleum acquisition

Exxon Mobil board director Gregory Goff has recently become a member of newly formed Elliott Investment Management-backed company looking to gain control of Venezuela-owned oil refiner Citgo Petroleum.

Citgo and Exxon are fiercest competitors in the business of motor fuels and lubricants. Exxon is the third-largest US oil refiner in terms of capacity, while Citgo is the seventh-largest.

Goff, appointed in 2021 as a member of a dissident slate of Exxon directors, was on Friday named CEO of Amber Energy, an Elliott affiliate, in a statement announcing its emergence as the winning bidder at a US court auction of Citgo parent PDV Holding's shares.

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Exxon did not have an immediate response about Goff's position at the company. On the company's board of directors webpage, it lists Goff as chairman of its audit committee and member of its executive and finance committees.

An Amber Energy spokesperson declined to comment.

The offer values the Houston-based oil refiner at $7.28 billion. Shares of a Citgo parent with only the refinery as an asset are being sold off to pay as much as $21.3 billion in claims against Venezuela and state oil firm PDVSA following expropriations and debt defaults.

Having refiners in Texas, Louisiana, and Illinois, an all-inclusive fuel storage and pipeline network, and 4,200 independent retailers, Citgo has an excellent portfolio of fuel storage, retailing, and pipelines. In the year 2023, the net profit was $2 billion.

Amber's disclosure of the Citgo bid identifies Goff as a 40-year veteran of the energy and energy-related industries. It says nothing about his tenure at Exxon but describes him as the former chairman and CEO of oil refiner Andeavor and CEO of Claire Technologies Inc.

He was a vice chairman at Marathon Petroleum through 2019. Elliott made billions of dollars after taking a stake in Marathon and prodding it to improve operations and hive off pieces of its business. Marathon sold its Speedway retail fuel business to 7-Eleven for $21 billion in 2021.