New build and expansion
Service station construction
A service station is a high-risk, regulated industrial civil work, not a retail shop with a roof bolted on. The decisions made on the drawings — tank material, line depth, canopy diameter — translate into 20 or 30 years of operation, or into costly remediations.
What it is
We support the construction of new stations and the expansion of existing sites in Panama, from technical feasibility through to commercial opening. A new station takes, on average, 12 to 24 months from land purchase to opening, spread across six phases: feasibility and due diligence, design and permitting, civil and underground works, structure and canopy, electromechanical installation, and testing with certification.
The civil and structural works phases are the most sensitive to Panama's rains: where possible, we schedule the underground work for the dry season (January–April). Early decisions — lot, tank type, EIA — dominate everything else: a well-designed project operates 30 years without surprises; one built with shortcuts spends twice.
Applicable regulations
The design and permitting phase is where most projects fall behind. The procedures run partly in parallel, but with dependencies between agencies:
- MIAMBIENTE — Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), the most frequent bottleneck: it requires a soil baseline, a hydrogeological study, an environmental management plan and a spill contingency plan.
- SNE (Secretaría Nacional de Energía) — station construction permit and, at closeout, the operating permit.
- ATTT — authorization of road accesses (curb radii, distance to intersections, deceleration lane where applicable).
- Municipality — construction permit and verification of land use; not every urban zone allows a service station.
- Fire Department — sign-off of the fire protection system on NFPA drawings and a final certificate after the work.
⚠️ The specific distances (ATTT, NFPA 30/30A), the EIA categories and the timelines of each procedure are indicative and depend on the lot and on the regulations in force at the time of the project. We verify the exact citation of resolutions and decrees ingacetaoficial.gob.pa before listing them.
Process
- 01Feasibility and due diligence: vehicle access, zoning, safety distances, hydrogeology and lot geometry.
- 02Design and permitting: drawings, EIA and SNE/ATTT/MIAMBIENTE/municipal procedures along their critical path.
- 03Civil and underground works: excavation, tanks, lines, anti-flotation anchoring, API separator and slab.
- 04Structure and canopy: clearance height, slope and drainage, anchoring to slab and the store building.
- 05Electromechanical installation: dispensers (Wayne, Gilbarco, Tokheim), ATG and tank monitoring, fire protection system and POS.
- 06Testing, certification and opening: initial tightness test, metrological calibration, inspections by the Fire Department, SNE and MIAMBIENTE.
Related case
In underground work for chains like Delta, Texaco and Terpel we have worked on tanks without stopping dispensing. At Galápagos we replaced four 30,000-gallon tanks in 72 hours with the station operating.