It now seems likely that Elliott Investment Management’s Amber Energy will acquire CITGO Petroleum for $7.3 billion in mid-2025, thereby ending a yearslong legal drama about the fate of CITGO’s three large U.S. refineries and related pipelines and terminal assets. So what exactly is Amber buying and how will the refineries in question fare in the increasingly competitive global market for refined fuels? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll summarize the long legal battle that led to Amber’s selection by a federal court’s “special master” as the preferred buyer, examine the assets to be acquired, and assess what’s ahead for CITGO’s refineries, which have a combined capacity of more than 800 Mb/d.