Prostar Capital, a private investment firm focused on midstream energy infrastructure assets, and NuStar Energy L.P. (NYSE: NS), today announced the completion of Prostar's acquisition of an oil storage terminal facility located on the island of St. Eustatius, a Dutch island in the Caribbean. The $250 million transaction was first announced in May 2019.
The terminal is a complementary acquisition for Prostar's existing storage terminal platform, Global Terminal Investments Ltd., which also owns Fujairah Oil Terminal FZC and GTI Fujairah FZC, both of which are located in the Port of Fujairah, UAE. The St. Eustatius terminal has been rebranded as 'GTI Statia' under Prostar's ownership.
The GTI Statia terminal is strategically located along major shipping lanes serving US crude import and export markets, as well as the regional markets for fuel oil and refined petroleum products in the Caribbean and Latin America. The terminal consists of 60 commercial tanks with a total storage capacity of 2.3 million cubic meters (14 million barrels) and extensive marine infrastructure that can accommodate fully-laden VLCC and ULCC vessels. The acquisition is Prostar's second transaction in the region following its 2017 investment in Eureka Midstream, a gas gathering business located in the heart of the Marcellus and Utica shale basins.
"We are excited to be acquiring one of the largest independent storage terminals in the region. This transaction is consistent with Prostar's strategy of identifying assets that are strategically positioned to serve their customers, and where opportunities exist to de-risk the business's cash flows and grow shareholder value," said Steve Bickerton, Senior Managing Director of Prostar. "Prostar actively looks to augment its portfolio companies through expansion capital, and we see several paths to do that with GTI Statia."
"The acquisition of the GTI Statia terminal represents the third storage terminal investment for Prostar through our GTI platform and increases the underlying capacity of that business to more than 3.4 million cubic meters (c.22 million barrels) of storage. We will continue to build and diversify the platform through future acquisitions of terminals located in key global energy storage and trading hubs," added Dave Noakes, Senior Managing Director of Prostar.
"We are pleased that this sale allows us to re-deploy the sales proceeds to continue to lower our leverage and to fund growth projects in our core North American business, allowing us to focus our resources on building our core asset base, as well as continuing to strengthen our financial metrics to generate stable, consistent growth for our unitholders," said Brad Barron, President and Chief Executive Officer of NuStar Energy. "And while it was a very difficult decision to divest the terminal given that it is such a high-quality asset with outstanding employees, we are pleased to hand over the reins to a company with a business model that is better aligned to take advantage of the terminal's location and operational strengths, which ensures a bright future for the facility and its employees."
About Prostar Capital
Prostar Capital is a private investment firm established in 2012 to invest in global midstream energy infrastructure assets that it believes are strategically positioned to serve growing global energy demand. The firm invests in assets that are focused on the gathering, processing, storage, transmission and distribution of energy. Prostar's management team is comprised of experienced professionals with decades of real asset investment and operational expertise. Prostar has originated and managed energy infrastructure investments representing c. $500 million of equity capital. Prostar is headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, with additional offices in Sydney and Hong Kong. For more information, visit Prostar's website at www.prostarcapital.com.
About NuStar Energy
NuStar Energy L.P., a publicly traded master limited partnership based in San Antonio, is one of the largest independent liquids terminal and pipeline operators in the nation. NuStar currently has approximately 9,800 miles of pipeline and 74 terminal and storage facilities that store and distribute crude oil, refined products and specialty liquids. The partnership's combined system has more than 74 million barrels of storage capacity, and NuStar has operations in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. For more information, visit NuStar Energy L.P.'s website at www.nustarenergy.com.
