PANAMA CITY: The Panamanian government said Friday it would buy the remaining 41 percent private stake in Petroterminal from a US company, giving Panama complete control of the strategic oil pipeline.
Once the transaction is completed, “Panama will own 100 percent” of Petroterminal, “consolidating national control over one of the country’s most important strategic infrastructures,” the government said in a statement.
It said the acquisition would be funded “with the income and cash flows generated by the company itself,” without giving the value of the transaction. “Our goal is for this strategic infrastructure to generate increasing value and greater benefits for all Panamanians,” Panama’s Minister of Economy and Finance Felipe Chapman said. Chapman said the acquisition was “in strict accordance with the law.”
Petroterminal was created in 1977 as a joint venture between Panama and the US company NIC Holding Corp to store and distribute hydrocarbons that could not pass through the Panama Canal on the way to the east coast of the United States because of the size of the ships.