Aegean Marine Petroleum — the Greek firm that provides bunkering services for ships entering Jamaica’s ports — is planning to invest up to US$20 million ($1.79 billion) in a land-based storage facility in Kingston, but the deal still awaits fine points to be closed out, including financing.

In a recent filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Aegean said in January it had entered into an agreement to purchase for US$9.8 million ($877 million) the property in Rockfort, Kingston, from which it currently operates.

The idea is to develop a facility where it can store fuels — Marine fuel oil (MFO) and Marine gas oil (MGO) primarily — and load its bunkers that supply vessels entering Jamaican waters.

“The closing of the transaction is subject to a number of conditions precedent, including that we shall have secured the necessary financing,” said Aegean in its SEC filing. “We expect that the Jamaican property will require capital expenditures in the next few years between US$15 million and US$20 million.”

Up to last November, Aegean said it was using its single hull tanker, Aegean IX, as a floating storage facility in Jamaica, but the company entered into an agreement with a third party purchaser to sell the Aegean IX, which was delivered in December 2009. Aegean didn’t say what it would use as a replacement in the interim.

The Greek firm has been authorised by the Port Authority of Jamaica to act as a physical supplier of marine petroleum products in Jamaica and it services customers in the ports of Kingston and Ocho Rios while it is not restricted to those locations.

Aegean runs its operations with two double hull tankers and one single hull bunkering tanker.

The bunkering firm currently has an arrangement that runs to 2012 with Petrojam to supply it with MFO and MGO, mainly, at a price equal to average PLATTS prices plus a margin.

Up to 2008, Jamaica represented 10 per cent of the company’s sales volumes by tonne, but the company did not disaggregate the sales data for 2009 when it saw 19.1 per cent increase in sales volumes.

Aegean did, however, say it entered three new markets last year, expanding its presence to 14 strategic locations worldwide, including: Vancouver, Montreal, Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, West Africa, Gibraltar, UK, Northern Europe, Piraeus, Patras, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Tangiers, Morocco