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Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA looks set to launch an aggressive expansion strategy this year with the purchase and lease of key oil terminal facilities in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to local sources.

In a report submitted by PDVSA to the Venezuelan Parliament in 2007, the company said that it planned to rent oil storage and transportation facilities in Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala. The compound, which comprises a tank farm, a seaport oil terminal and a 250,000 bpd distribution plant is set to become a regional storage hub for the shipment of fuels and could theoretically be used as a base from which to supply marine fuels and lubricants in the area.

The company also aims to purchase an oil terminal in the northeast of Brazil with a 24,000 bpd fuel capacity and a lube mixing and filling plant in Ecuador.

News of PDVSA's expansion plans comes only a few weeks after the Venezuelan holding announced the sale of its 20 million-barrel BORCO crude oil and refined products terminal in Freeport, Bahamas to private equity player First Reserve. PDVSA bought the facility, the largest in the Caribbean, from Chevron in 1990.

PDVSA currently leases a tank farm and a 260,000 barrel storage terminal in St. John's, Antigua, which it uses as a hub to transport diesel and fuels to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Dominica. In Haiti, the company rents a fuel oil storage and shipment complex to generate power in the Caribbean country.