Puerto Armuelles is a city and corregimiento on Panama's Pacific coast in western Chiriquí Province adjacent to Costa Rica.

Panama City is some 235 miles (378 km) away, or approximately 6–8 hours drive on the Pan American Highway.

[1] Panama fought Costa Rica in the 1920s near Puerto Armuelles in what is called the Coto War.

An interesting side note is that today Panama and Costa Rica both have no military, just civil defense forces.

The Panama Canal cannot handle supertankers and, therefore, not able to cross over to the Atlantic Ocean and then onward to the refineries of Houston and the Gulf coast.

About 6 miles away from Puerto Armuelles, on Punta Burica, in the deep water of Charco Azul or in English "Blue Ditch" an ideal place was found to unload supertankers.

From there, supertankers are filled with oil and then transported to refineries.At one time there was a lot of talk of a refinery being built out by the PTP.

At the time, it was estimated that the refinery, with a cost of about $7 billion dollars, will be able to process 400,000 barrels (64,000 m3) of heavy crude from Mexico, South America, and the Middle East.

Earthquakes have hit Puerto Armuelles several times, including in July 1934 as well as on Christmas night 2003, both of which killed several locals.

The oil terminal also suffered extensive damage worth $2 million, including the loss of a very expensive part into the deep water of Charco Azul, and, although divers were contracted, the steep descent of the ocean floor led to the part rolling off and never being recovered.

The beach is nearby if it is too hot or up the mountain to Volcán Barú, which towers over the area at 11,400 feet (3478 m) high, and can be seen from the hills of Monte Verde.

This is the road that links Puerto Armuelles to the Pan-American Highway (called the "InterAmericana" in Panama) at Paso Canoas.

According to the Panama government, one of the key reasons for this road expansion project is to service a proposed deep container port outside of Puerto Armuelles.