PDVSA sells Borco terminal
Venezuela's state-run oil giant PDVSA has agreed to sell its Borco crude oil and refined products terminal in the Bahamas to private equity player First Reserve.
A spokeswoman for First Reserve declined to comment on the terms of the deal, but the Financial Times newspaper said the purchase price is $900 million.
The deal comes as US supermajor ExxonMobil has won injunctions in the US, UK, the Netherlands and the Netherlands Antilles freezing $12 billion of PDVSA assets. ExxonMobil is seeking payment for Venezuela's seizure of a company project in that country last year.
A spokeswoman for First Reserve said ExxonMobil's legal moves were not likely to have an impact on the Borco deal.
"The information that we have does not lead us to believe that it will affect our transaction." Caitlyn MacDonald said.
ExxonMobil had filed for arbitration in its dispute with PDVSA over the Cerro Negro heavy oil project, but persuaded the courts to impose the injunctions, arguing that PDVSA would seek to avoid payment if ExxonMobil prevailed in arbitration.
Borco is a 20 million-barrel storage terminal in Freeport, Bahamas, about 130 kilometres east of the Florida coast.
PDVSA bought the facility, the largest in the Caribbean, in 1990 from Chevron.