Citgo is a crown jewel of Venezuela's oil industry. Elliott is set to reap the benefits.

For activist hedge fund Elliott Investment Management, Nicolas Maduro’s swift exit comes at an auspicious time.

- Benoit Morenne

Elliott could soon close its proposed takeover of Citgo by refiner PdVSA.

A U.S. judge in November backed a roughly $6 billion bid by Elliott for Citgo Petroleum, the refining firm owned by Venezuela's state-run company Petróleos de Venezuela, known as PdVSA, in a forced sale to satisfy creditors. Citgo, based in Houston, owns a U.S. network of refineries, pipelines and terminals that some analysts have said could be worth between $11 billion and $13 billion.

The deal was controversial in Venezuela. Maduro’s government denounced the proposed sale as fraudulent. The board recognized by the U.S. government as the legitimate overseer of PdVSA’s overseas oil assets vowed to fight to keep Citgo under Venezuelan control.

Less than two months after receiving the judge’s endorsement, Elliott is looking at a more favorable—albeit chaotic—landscape. Maduro is being held in a New York jail. President Trump has sidelined the opposition, accused Venezuela of stealing American crude and said U.S. firms would be strongly involved in its oil industry.

Now, Elliott appears poised to reap the rewards of owning Venezuela’s most valuable foreign oil asset. The regime change could lead to an increase in Venezuelan oil production, which would likely provide cheap feedstock to Citgo’s Gulf Coast refineries and increase the company’s value, analysts and refining experts said.

“Maduro is out, so a lot of the threat is out,” said Jay Auslander, a litigator who represents sovereign interests and private-equity funds. “It looks like a potentially quite good deal that remains high risk.”

Elliott isn’t in the clear yet.

The hedge fund still needs approval from the Treasury Department to conclude the deal. Plus, PdVSA and Venezuela have appealed the judicial sale.