UPDATE 1-Venezuelan bonds regain place in influential JPMorgan debt indexes

(Adds detail, background and bondholder comment)

By Marc Jones

LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Venezuela's sovereign bonds and those of state oil company PDVSA will return to JPMorgan's highly-influential emerging market bond indexes over a three-month period starting from the end of April, the U.S. bank said on Thursday.

"Venezuelan Sovereign and Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) bonds will be included in the EMBI Global/Diversified benchmarks over a three month phase-in period starting April 30th and ending June 28th," JPMorgan said.

The re-addition will entail a total of 20 Venezuelan sovereign and quasi-sovereign bonds representing a total notional value of $53 billion, it added.

The bonds had been placed on "watch" for a potential restatement following a decision by the U.S. Treasury Department in October to lift a near four-year ban on U.S. investors trading of Venezuelan debt in the open bond markets.

JPMorgan's EMBI indices are the main global benchmarks for dollar- and other "hard-currency"-denominated bonds issued by emerging market countries and increasing Venezuela's weighting in them will trigger buying by funds that track them.

The bonds have had a zero weighting since 2019 when Washington first imposed its sweeping sanctions.

Thursday's reversal though will mean they are set to have a total estimated weight of 58 basis points in the EMBI Global Diversified and 69 bps in the EMBI Global.

"I don't think they (JPMorgan) really had much wiggle room on this decision," Hans Humes at Greylock Capital Management and co-chair of the Venezuela Creditor Committee said.

"If you take the weighting to zero when the sanctions are applied, you have to lift it again when the sanctions are lifted."

JPMorgan said it had consulted over 100 asset managers before making the changes. (Reporting by Marc Jones, editing by Libby George and Tomasz Janowski)