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 Hamburg, Manch ...

just outside Puerto Armuelles, in the southwest corner of

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

near the border with

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

. It lies just to the east of the Burica Peninsula, 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 are also Islas Secas, Isla Los Ladr ...

. Charco Azul translates to "blue ditch/puddle." This name comes from its steep slope off the shore, where the

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an islan ...

is extremely thin. A few meters into the

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

, 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 cr ...

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) and lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

from

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

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 a ...

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

and the

Gulf coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, 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 Tex ...

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 traveling 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 () is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, and is a Channel (geography), conduit for maritime trade between th ...

. In 1982, the

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

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