Venezuela’s opposition on Wednesday disclosed the opening of a US fund to bank oil income — a key step to secure financing in its effort to boot President Nicolas Maduro.

The fund would receive income earned by state-run oil firm PDVSA’s US unit Citgo Petroleum Corp since last month, when President Trump recognized self-proclaimed president Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state, opposition legislator Carlos Paparoni told Reuters.

Most Latin American and European countries also recognize Guaido, although Italy so far has not.

Guaido, head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, has reached out to Italy’s ruling coalition seeking its support.

Citgo, the eighth-largest US refiner and Venezuela’s top foreign asset, is in the middle of a tug of war as the US has made aggressive moves to remove it from Maduro’s control and imposed sanctions on OPEC-member Venezuela’s oil industry.

“This is already quite advanced, I hope that next week it can be announced by our representative in the United States,” Paparoni said of the establishment of the fund for the opposition.

Pressure is building on Maduro, a socialist, to resign amid an economic crisis marked by widespread shortages and hyperinflation. He was re-elected last year in a vote critics have called a sham.

Yon Goicoechea, a member of Guaido’s policy team, told Reuters that Guaido was in contact with PDVSA’s international partners and they were willing to keep operating in Venezuela. He did not identify the partners.

Guaido’s team is planning for a post-Maduro government with an emergency arrangement to supply fuel domestically, given widespread shortages across Venezuela, Goicoechea said.

The opposition also decried the government’s overseas gold sales, and wants to prevent the government from selling more, believing that it was using the proceeds to remain solvent as the sanctions cut off other revenue streams.

But Maduro’s government last year sold 73 tons of gold to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates without the required approval of the opposition-led National Assembly, Paparoni told a news conference.

“We will keep working so that not one more gram of gold can be sold,” Paparoni said.

Venezuela had gold reserves of 132 tons between the central bank’s vaults and the Bank of England at the end of November, according to central bank data.

Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not immediately respond to requests to comment.

In recent days, at least five tankers carrying gasoline, gasoil for power generation and naphtha have been ordered to unload at Venezuela’s ports as fuel inventories dwindle.

PDVSA issued court orders for most of the tankers to discharge, according to shipping sources.

With Wires