By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Jan. 14 -- TransMontaigne Inc., Denver, said Tuesday it will acquire the Florida petroleum terminals and tug and barge operations of Houston-based El Paso Corp. for an estimated $155 million, including an estimated $35 million of product inventory value at closing.
El Paso acquired these assets through its merger with Coastal Corp. in 2001 (OGJ Online, Jan. 21, 2001). The Florida terminals, which have an aggregate storage capacity of about 5 million bbl, provide bunker fuel, residual fuel, diesel, and gasoline to the Florida cities of Jacksonville, Cape Canaveral, Port Manatee-Tampa, Port Everglades, and Fisher Island.
In 2002, these facilities sold an average of 29,000 b/d of bunker fuel, primarily to the cruise ship industry, and supplied about 28,000 b/d of gasoline and distillates over its petroleum products racks, TransMontaigne said. In addition, the facilities provide a variety of third party lease capacity to the asphalt, jet fuel (commercial and government), power generation, and oil industries.
TransMontaigne said it plans to integrate these new assets with its existing Port Everglades, Tampa, and Pensacola terminalsthat have an aggregate 1.2 million bbl of storage capacity. The company added that it anticipates hiring "substantially all" of the current El Paso employees.
The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter.