Charco Azul is a bay and

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as ...

just outside

Puerto Armuelles Puerto Armuelles is a city and corregimiento on Panama's Pacific coast in western Chiriquí Province adjacent to Costa Rica. It is the seat of the Barú District and the second-largest city in Chiriqui province with a population nearly 25,000. ...

, in the southwest corner of

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...

near the border with Costa Rica. It lies just to the east of the

Burica Peninsula The Burica Peninsula is a coastal relief that juts south into the Pacific Ocean and is divided into two areas: the west side belongs to Costa Rica, and the area that belongs to Panama, which dominates the east and about two-thirds of the penins ...

, and forms part of the larger

Gulf of Chiriquí The Gulf of Chiriquí is a part of Panama that encompasses Coiba National Park and Golfo de Chiriquí National Park. There are dozens of islands in this Gulf. Along with the islands of Coiba National Park there is also Islas Secas, Los Ladrones, ...

. Charco Azul translates to "blue ditch/puddle." This name comes from its steep slope off the shore, where the continental shelf is extremely thin. A few meters into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

, the water is already about 200 m deep.Instituto Geográfico Nacional “Tommy Guardia”. ''Síntesis Geográfica''. Panamá. 1998. Because of this depth, engineers chose Charco Azul as the site of a port for use by

supertanker An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined c ...

s. As the dock is only 300 feet long, many captains of these supertankers worried that they would run aground, but the water is deep enough to support the largest ones. In fact, one can see deepwater fish swimming just underneath the dock. Since the late 1970s, Charco Azul has unloaded

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

from

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S ...

to be shipped to the

refineries A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value. Types of refineries Different types of refineries ...

Houston Houston (; ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in Texas, the Southern United States#Major cities, most populous city in the Southern United States, the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most pop ...

and the

Gulf coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Missis ...

of the United States. Originally it was a stopping spot for supertankers to unload and

Panamax Panamax and New Panamax (or Neopanamax) are terms for the size limits for ships travelling through the Panama Canal. The limits and requirements are published by the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) in a publication titled "Vessel Requirements". ...

tankers to load to carry the oil across the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a Channel ( ...

. In 1982, the

Trans-Panama pipeline The Trans-Panama Pipeline ( es, Oleoducto Chiriqui Bocas del Toro) is an oil pipeline across Panama near the Costa Rican border from the port of Chiriqui Grande, Bocas del Toro on the Caribbean coast to the port of Charco Azul on the Pacific co ...

was commissioned to transport the oil across to isthmus, with Charco Azul at the southern end. The pipeline was closed in 1996 as Alaskan oil shipments declined, but it began being used in the reverse direction in 2009 to ship crude oil to Pacific Rim refineries.

References

{{Coord missing, Panama Bays of Panama Bays of the Pacific Ocean Panamanian coasts of the Pacific Ocean Chiriquí Province