The Citgo sign overlooking Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, is something of a local icon. But many Americans may be unaware of the Venezuelan owners of Citgo, which refines and distributes crude oil through 7,000 U.S. service stations.

Now faced with an intensifying cash crisis, the Venezuelan state's plan to sell Citgo has brought the question of ownership back into the public eye. Although in a changed downstream landscape, buyers are hardly lining up at their door.

PDVSA, Venezuela's state oil company, first purchased a stake in Citgo from Southland Energy in 1986 as part of their internationalization strategy — a long-term strategic investment policy of acquiring downstream assets in consumption centers such as the U.S., the U.K. and Germany to secure buyers for Venezuelan oil. It took full control in 1989.

Now that energy demand has soared worldwide since the 1980s, it is easy to forget that a key priority for serious oil producers like Venezuela was once finding refiners to process their heavy and extra heavy crude, which demands specialized refining equipment. Between two Gulf Coast refineries and another on the outskirts of Chicago, Citgo today has 749,000 barrels per day (bpd) of refining capacity and a large network of gas stations.

This is far from the first time the Venezuelans have tried to sell off Citgo, but the momentum has been building for a sale. This summer they began working with New York investment bank Lazard to bring a sale closer.

Since then Rafael Ramirez, the driving force behind the idea, has been demoted from his powerful position as energy minister, and President Nicolás Maduro was making notably less enthusiastic statements during his recent trip to the U.S.

But Venezuela still has strong incentives to sell, and a sale is not off the table. This could bring to an end a fascinating story full of playful politics, which reveals a lot about the ironic but mutually dependent relationship between Washington and Caracas.

Since Bolivarian nationalist Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela in 1998, the irony of PDVSA's U.S. investments has become clear. Although he initially pushed for a sale, Chavez was persuaded to keep hold of Citgo as an important source of finances. Instead he appointed his comrade-in-arms Oswaldo Contreras as president and seized on Citgo's possibilities as a political tool.

In a paradox typical of the nexus between business and politics, Chavez — a statesman who never missed an opportunity to denounce his North American neoimperialist overlords — was for years supplying gas to 7,000 U.S. gas stations. But Citgo was at the center of one of his carefully choreographed political dances, and it is hard not to applaud the polarizing leader's sense of irony.

Through one of Citgo's long-running welfare projects, the Venezuelan state supplies low-cost heating oil to 150,000 low-income families across the U.S. In a carefully calculated move, the program extends to homeless shelters and Native Americans tribes — those communities most let down by North American capitalism.

The humiliation offensive continued when Citgo rolled out its "Care for our Coast" campaign in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as President George W. Bush was being vilified for his negligence. The U.S. media branded Chavez as North America's "Santa Claus."

At the pump, U.S. customers see the company — which employs more than 3,500 Americans — as little different from its competitors. Although Chavez-appointed CEO Felix Rodriguez reportedly speaks less-than-perfect English, Citgo is no "Venezuelan McDonald's" as some have suggested; the Citgo brand bears none of the immediate cultural weight of McDonald's golden arches.

However after one of Chavez' sharper barbs about the U.S. president in a UN speech in 2006 , the quintessentially American 7-Eleven convenience stores ended their contracts with Citgo. Boston city council member Jerry McDermott even called for the city's iconic sign to be torn down in protest.

Since Chavez's death in 2013, tough economic realities mean that Venezuela's need for hard cash is trumping politics for his successor, Maduro. A deepening economic crisis has led to rumours of a default on Venezuela's sovereign debt, and to shortages of basic commodities like toilet paper and flour that have become so severe they have sparked a popular new hashtag on Twitter, #SOSVenezuela. Venezuelan leaders, starved of foreign currency, insist that a sale of Citgo could bring in more than $10 billion.

Even greater urgency is provided by the long line of creditors, among them ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, in international courts with multimillion-dollar compensation claims over the 2007 nationalization of their Venezuelan assets.

Exxon, which expects a World Bank court to award them between $700 million and $1.2 billion, has threatened to take measures to block the sale of Citgo until the sentence is finalized. Conoco is seeking up to $30 billion in compensation, which would send Venezuelan state finances into disarray. Beyond the need for cash, the disposal of U.S. assets is an attempt to withdraw them from a vulnerable jurisdiction and avoid seizure by international oil companies.

But while PBF Energy and Marathon Petroleum have both shown preliminary interest, the biggest stumbling block is the price PDVSA wants to achieve. Consultancy Turner, Mason and Company value the assets at $7 billion, rather than the $10 to 15 billion sought.

What's more, few companies today will be prepared to buy such a set of assets in bulk, as refiners look to the light crude coming out of the domestic shale boom rather than heavy Venezuelan grades. Venezuela would also likely have to make concessions on the long-term supply contracts that lock Citgo refineries into taking on large volumes of Venezuelan feedstock.

The most attractive asset may prove to be the 167,000 bpd Lemont Refinery, which lies southwest of Chicago and is well-placed to receive crude from Canada's prolific oil fields. Lemont would also be one of the winners in an approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Industry analysts believe that Venezuela's best hopes — although a less lucrative option — are for debundling the assets and selling them off separately to individual buyers, perhaps through a private equity firm.

If PDVSA manages to overcome these obstacles and exit the U.S., Americans may be happy to regain control back over 5 percent of their refining capacity from what is seen as a volatile and hostile power.

But once Santa Claus has gone back home, they should be prepared to face the anger, or foot the bill, of marginalized communities grown used to their subsidized fuel.