May 4, 2016 [OPIS] - Zenith Energy, an international liquids and bulk terminaling company, and its partner Grupo Coremar, a marine transportation and logistics company in Colombia, have completed the first phase of the Palermo Tanks Terminal located in the port of Barranquilla, Colombia.
The storage facility has an initial capacity of 352,000 bbl for refined products and crude oil storage, a new ship dock, and six lane truck rack, as well as accompanying infrastructure.
The project’s timetable was pushed back from 2015, and the initial plan for the new terminal was to have a 528,000-bbl capacity.
The Port of Barranquilla is located south of Pozos, which is the main discharge port for clean products, and north of Covenas, which is a major crude and fuel oil port in Colombia, and Mamonal, another clean products port.
Palermo Tanks will hold a permitted storage of up to 2.5 million bbl for third-party merchant storage, allowing for the acceptance of clean products, crude oil, asphalt, vegetable oil and petrochemicals to and from a 50,000-dwt dock with approximately 12 meters of draft alongside. The phase one capacity was contracted on a term basis, and Zenith will be pursuing the next phase of expansion over the next year.
Palermo Tanks is located within Grupo Coremar’s 426-acre Palermo Port Society development. The Port offers a variety of dry, break bulk and liquids services and the Palermo Port Society development is especially well-suited for efficient business, owing to its ideal location alongside the Magdalena River, as well as its quick access to Colombia’s national highway network and the country’s major mining region.
“This is the first of many planned strategic midstream investments for Zenith in Colombia, one of the most important energy economies in the region,” said Jeff Armstrong, CEO of Zenith.
On April 26, Zenith completed its acquisition of a liquids storage and handling facility located in the international port of Amsterdam from BP. BP will continue to be a major customer of the Amsterdam terminal.
Zenith intends to invest approximately $100 million in the Amsterdam terminal, with the goal to fully utilize its capacity for products and liquefied petroleum gas storage. The newly acquired Amsterdam terminal features 75 tanks with a majority of the capacity allocated to gasoline and gasoil.
