Connecticut private firm Prostar Capital plans to invest $100 million into a recently acquired terminal in the Caribbean that will be able to receive some of the largest oil tankers in the world.
Source: Houston Chronicle
Prostar bought the facility on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius from San Antonio pipeline and storage terminal operator NuStar Energy in a $250 million deal that closed in May 2019.
Less than a year after the deal, Prostar announced that the firm plans to invest $100 million for storage tank upgrades as well as improvements to the facility’s jetties and docks. The work is expected to last two years.
The upgrades will allow customers to move crude oil in and out of the United States to end markets in the Asia-Pacific region using Very Large Crude Carriers, or VLCC tankers. Considered among the largest ships in the world, a single VLCC tanker can haul 2 million barrels of crude oil in a single load.
VLCC tankers require 75 feet of water when fully loaded making them too large to fully load in American ports.
The St. Eustatius terminal has water depths ranging from 125 to 220 feet, meaning that the supertankers can fully load without any problems.
