For more than fifty years Portugal's central region, including Lisbon's metropolitan area, was supplied with petroleum derivates from the Cabo Ruivo refinery - one of the 3 most important petroleum storage areas in the country, the others being Matosinhos and Sines.

From Cabo Ruivo, more than 500 tankers used to leave the refinery daily in order to supply white oils and bottled gas not only to Lisbon but to areas such as Leiria, Castelo Branco and Portalegre as well.

With the organization of EXPO 98, in the area located in and around the Cabo Ruivo refinery - meaning that the all area had to be freed for the event - another area had to be found in order to relocate the Storage facilities as the " Refining" needs were already taken care of with the modernisation of the Sines Refinery.

Making quality the first and foremost priority, Petrogal, started building a storage plant on a European scale linked to the Sines refinery by a multiproducts pipeline, a solution that not only protects lives as well as the environment of the surronding population.

With two sites already in place to supply the north and south of Portugal, the whole of the central region and the Lisbon area - which equals 50% of the total consumption - had to be secured.

To face this challenge, a Task Group was set up, in September 1992, to study and develop the project.