NuStar Energy, a US-based liquids terminal and pipeline operator, has agreed to sell its St. Eustatius Terminal in the Caribbean to Prostar Capital for a sum of around $250m.
Image: Prostar to acquire NuStar's St. Eustatius Terminal in the Caribbean. Photo: courtesy of Carlo San/Freeimages.com.
The St. Eustatius Terminal, which is an oil storage terminal facility located on Saint Eustatius, serves key trading countries through the storage of products and materials like crude oil, distillates, gasolines, jet fuels, intermediate petroleum products and marine lubricants.
The oil storage terminal is made up of 60 commercial tanks and associated deep water jetties and pipelines. It has a total storage capacity of 2.3 million cubic meters.
NuStar Energy president and CEO Brad Barron said: “It has become increasingly clear in recent months that the facility requires a new business model to ensure its long-term success and that NuStar’s best path forward is to sell the terminal to a buyer that is well-positioned to take advantage of the changing global crude oil trade flow patterns.”
Barron added that the sale of the St. Eustatius Terminal will enable NuStar Energy to re-deploy the proceeds from it to boost the company’s financial metrics and also for funding the growth projects for its core business in North America.
Prostar Capital, which is a specialized investment manager, is engaged in investing in midstream energy infrastructure assets across the world. The private investment firm has investments in Fujairah oil terminal in the UAE, South Korean gas distributor Kyungham Energy, US midstream firm Eureka Midstream and GTI Fujairah, a refined petroleum products storage facility in the UAE.
Prostar senior managing director Dave Noakes said: “The acquisition of the Saint Eustatius Terminal is consistent with Prostar’s sharply defined approach to creating value by acquiring, managing and improving the performance of middle market assets that are positioned to benefit from the global demand for energy.”
Last November, NuStar Energy completed a previously announced $270m sale of its European terminals and associated assets to Inter Terminals, the European storage subsidiary of Inter Pipeline.
At the time of the sale, the divested European bulk liquid storage business comprised seven coastal terminals with a combined capacity of 9.1 million barrels of storage. While one of the terminals is the Netherlands, the other six facilities are located across the UK.