PANAMA LAND SALES/LEASE STRATEGY
A fuels transportation and marketing company operated a terminal near Colon, Panama. The terminal operation was being placed into a joint venture with an international terminal operator. Adjacent the terminal, the client owned an additional 1,000 acres (400 Ha) of undeveloped property. The undeveloped property was being held as buffer against residential development near the terminal. Through a series of reorganizations, the company had misplaced or lost most of its real estate records. Through coordination with engineering/survey companies in the US and Panama, I was able to search the provincial Registry to reconstruct and rebuild the ownership records and establish property boundaries for all of the parcels, water rights, and pipeline easements. I coordinated activities of a land surveyor to establish boundaries for the joint venture company and delineate future terminal "Free Trade Zone" boundaries and expansion areas as well as mangrove stands, which are undevelopable.
Panama was experiencing shortfalls in electric power availability. In response, the Government of Panama issued multiple RFP's for power generation contracts. The company's property is ideally situated for diesel and fuel oil power generation since both fuels are handled at the terminal and a major transmission line traverses the undeveloped property. To bid on power generation contracts, power producers were required to have identified and acquired land for the power plant. I positioned the company to respond to power generators requests to lease or buy land by creating a development plan for the property, including interconnecting roadways and parcel boundaries. The development plan was established to respect the property topography, ownership boundaries, and sensitive ecological areas. To identify sensitive ecological areas, we enlisted a local environmental consultant with expertise in ecological resource mapping, development permitting, and mitigation requirements.
On the terminal property, we developed a land lease strategy for a third party power generator who desired to berth a 10MW power barge at a new dock. The land lease was structured with a fixed minimum monthly fee and a floating fee based on power generation. In addition, we tied the land lease to a requirement to purchase fuel from the terminal. The power generation company constructed the new dock (which becomes the property of the land owner when the lease is terminated), constructed a substation on the leased land, and connected the power barge for electrical power production within 6 months.
