BUNKERING
from the Panama Canal Pacific entrance, with berthing facilities up to four barges to be loaded simultaneously, should be operating by mid-2012, says Juan David Morgan Jr, Melones Oil Terminal director. ‘The tank storage farm consists of 16 tanks with total storage capacity of 2.1m barrels, designed according to API 650 and NFPA 30,’ explains Morgan Jr. ‘So far we have been in contact with several bunker suppliers that already are or want to come into the market and several international traders.’
‘I am very optimistic that we will provide the fastest and more efficient service because our installations will pump faster than any other terminal in Panama, and because vessels will not have to share piers or wait to load/unload their products,’ he explains. ‘I firmly believe, at least for the Pacific side, that this new tank farm will create new business and will make the bunkering market in Panama more efficient,’ comments Galavis, a consultant to the project.
Tank storage provider Royal Vopak NV has announced it plans to build and operate 655,000cu mtr of independent storage capacity for oil products in Bahia Las Minas, on Panama’s Atlantic coast. The new facilities, that include the enhancement of two existing jetties, are to be commissioned in the first half of 2013.
On the Atlantic entrance of the Panama Canal, the $52m Teffler Tanks, a joint venture between Interoceanic
PANAMA MARITIME REVIEW 2011/12
Supply Services (ISS) and local investors, located next to Cristobal port’s berth 16, is to begin construction in the next months. ‘The tanks will be built in the US, the local contractor has been selected and we have secured the financing so we should begin construction as scheduled, ‘says project manager Steve Walling.
The construction of Melones Oil Terminal should be operating by mid-2012.
Teffler Tanks ‘will have a capacity of 1.2m bbl with three 200,000bbl tanks, two 100,000bbl tanks, five 50,000bbl tanks, five 25,000bbl tanks and one of 5,000bbl, ‘to provide the customer with more storage flexibility,’ explains Walling. The facility will include a 14mtr draught which will be increased to 16mtr. It will have its own dedicated pier with four positions able to serve post- Panamax vessels, truck loading racks for local market and the latest technology to blend products and assure high pumping rates that will prevent delays for barges and tankers.
In 2010, the independent Hamburg- based provider Oiltanking, acquired the companies Colon Oil and Services S.A. and Colon Port Terminal S.A. with 300,000bbl of tank storage capacity
with an exclusive 260mtr-pier for Panamax vessels. It is building an additional 450,000bbl of storage to serve new truck-loading facilities, which will be operational in 2012. ‘We offer storage facilities and provide logistics to bunker barges,’ says Oiltanking general manager Andres Bereilh. In Colon, ‘we had had to upgrade the installations but in October 2011, the first phase of operations will begin,’ he explains.
Also in the blueprints is development of a 40ha bunker terminal on Taboguilla Island, at the Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal. The terminal, which has received its environmental permit, will have a 1.5m bbl capacity with 12 tanks. ‘We have requested the seabed concession that should be provided by the AMP. Once we obtained this last permit, we are able to begin the construction of the future terminal,’ says Bereilh.
Some may believe that there will be too many facilities in Panama, ‘but our expectation is to be a place to take bunkers, to get to bunkering location, to become a bunkering position. Achieving this is difficult, Panama has neither oil nor refineries, but it is located next to several refineries and has the traffic. Fujairah, the world’s number three bunkering location, has the same configuration and has reached that position by having a very efficient operation and a lot of competition,’ says Digeronimo. •
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