Charco Azul

Charco Azul is a bay and port just outside Puerto Armuelles, in the southwest corner of Panama near the border with Costa Rica.

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.

Since the late 1970s, Charco Azul has unloaded oil from Alaska to be shipped to the refineries of Houston and the Gulf coast of the United States.

Originally it was a stopping spot for supertankers to unload and Panamax tankers to load to carry the oil across the Panama Canal.

In 1982, the Trans-Panama pipeline was commissioned to transport the oil across to isthmus, with Charco Azul at the southern end.