Puerto Bahia

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In June 2012, Pacific Infrastructure, a subsidiary of the Canadian oil company Pacific Rubiales, was granted through direct negotiations with federal authorities the right to build, own and operate the multipurpose terminal facilities named Puerto Bahia located at the Cartagena Bay (Colombia). The pier will have two berths, one for 80,000 ton ships and another for ships of up to 150,000 tons. The crude oil and products terminal was set to have a storage capacity of 3.0 million barrels of crude oil and derivatives and projected port throughput of 54.0 million barrels per year. The Puerto Bahia terminal project also included facilities for the handling of dry bulk and general cargo, in addition to a fully interconnected tank farm with direct access to local refineries and a crude oil pipeline. The investment was estimated at US$ 620 million over the life of the project. Financial closure was achieved in October 2013, when Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP represented Itau BBA S.A. in providing a US$ 370 million loan to the sponsor. The remaining investment cost was set to be equity financed. An EPC contract for the construction of the facilities was signed with Isolux Corsan (Spain), Tradeco (Mexico) and Tampa Tanks (USA) in September 2012. As of March 2013, construction works were underway. Operations were set to commence in 2015.