HOUSTON, March 27 (Reuters) - Citgo Petroleum

, the Venezuela-owned oil refiner, is set to open a

data room in coming days to provide operational and financial

information to bidders under a court-ordered auction that could

lead to new ownership, people familiar with the matter said on

Wednesday.

A U.S. federal court last year launched an auction of shares

in a parent of the Houston-based refiner to satisfy $21.3

billion in judgments for Venezuela's past expropriations and

debt defaults. The auction is due to wrap up this year and could

put the seventh-largest U.S. refiner by processing volume in the

hands of rivals or investors.

Management presentations began this week and the formal data

room will open at Citgo's headquarters, the people said. The

meetings kicked off a 45-day second bidding round that will

consider only binding offers.

Citgo wants to restrict data room access to serious bidders

and plans to press the issue this week with the court official

organizing the auction, one of the people said.

A Citgo spokesperson and a representative for the court

official declined to comment. Investment banker Evercore Group,

which is overseeing the auction's marketing, did not respond to

requests for comment.

Citgo is Venezuela's foreign crown jewel with three U.S.

refineries, pipelines, oil storage terminals and a retail

distribution network that spans nearly half of the United

States. It earned $2 billion last year.

About 30 parties signed confidentiality agreements and

received preliminary marketing information and a Citgo financial

model as part of the first bidding round, and 12 submitted

indications of interest in January, the court official leading

the process, Robert Pincus, has said.

That first round drew some creditors in the Delaware court

case who wanted to place credit bids, using the value of their

claims against Venezuela as part of their offer for the shares.