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Gazprombank sells indirect stake in joint venture with PDVSA

The details of the deal were not disclosed

MOSCOW, March 15. /TASS/. Russia’s Gazprombank has sold its stake in Petrozamora, a joint venture with Venezuela’s state-run oil and gas company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), a company spokesman told TASS on Thursday.

"The bank has fully withdrawn from holding an indirect stake in Petrozamora, the details of the deal are not disclosed," the source said.

A source in Russia’s financial circles told TASS that Gazprombank, Russia’s third largest lender in terms of assets, currently has no investment in any project in Venezuela.

Reuters earlier wrote citing own sources that Gazprombank held a minority stake in a company named GPB Global Resources, which in turn owns 40% of Petrozamora. PDVSA owns the remaining 60% in Petrozamora.

Gazprombank and PDVSA set up Petrozamora in 2012 to develop oil fields in Venezuela.

On March 11, the US Treasury added the Russian-Venezuelan Eurofinance Mosnarbank to the sanction list due to the situation in Venezuela. The Treasury accused the bank of supporting the regime of the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, whose regime "has profited off of the suffering of the Venezuelan people."

On March 12, it became known that VTB bank would transfer its stake in Eurofinance Mosnarbank to Russia’s Federal Property Management Agency. However, head of VTB, Andrei Kostin, even before the introduction of the US sanctions, announced VTB’s plans to withdraw from the bank’s capital.

Eurofinance Mosnarbank is 49.99% owned by the Venezuelan national development fund Fonden S.A., while 25% plus 1 share each are owned by Gazprombank (and its subsidiary Novfintech) and VTB (and its foreign structures VTB Bank and ITC Consultants).