Aruba awaits bids for precious oil storage

Aruba will receive bids no later than 15 May for a lease of crude and oil products storage capacity that opened up after the withdrawal of a US subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned PdV.

More than 40 companies have expressed interest in the storage on the Dutch Caribbean island, a senior local government official told Argus.

State-owned Refineria di Aruba (RdA) expects to award the storage lease at the end of May or early June.

The lease offer comes at a time of severe tightness in onshore and floating oil storage owing to a historic supply glut and a collapse in demand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, related containment efforts and the ensuing economic downturn.

Aruba has 10 storage tanks available for prompt leasing with capacity for 665,000 bl of clean products, 5.224mn bl of crude and 518,000 bl of naphtha, according to promotional material obtained by Argus. Another seven tanks currently awaiting repairs have capacity for 4.224mn bl of crude.

RdA regained control over a mothballed refinery, storage tanks and a transshipment terminal after a long-term lease with PdV's US holding company was recently terminated.

Delaware-based PdV Holding is controlled by Venezuela's US-backed political opposition, which inherited the $1.1bn Aruba refining project when it took over PdV's US assets last year.

PdV's US refining arm Citgo was the Aruba project manager.

By Patricia Garip