The new ships exceed the capacity of the Panama Canal

Less than ten years after the opening of the third set of locks, the size and capacity of the Panama Canal infrastructure is already facing new challenges.

Recently, the ship Ever Max, with a capacity of 17,000 containers, is still in transit with much less cargo than it was designed for, it had to unload containers, transport them overland to Colónmake a light transit and reload the containers in the Atlantic so they can continue to their destination in Savannah, Georgia.

Approximately, the ship unloaded 630 containers, and for the Panama Canal, those containers that were not on the ship represented 40 thousand dollars less in revenue, while the incremental cost to the shipping company could reach $70,000 to $80,000which shows the important challenge that the Panama Canal has to face, pointed out the manager Ricaurte Vásquez.

Currently, 17,000 containers probably represent the largest ship that can handle the Panama locks, and today 20% of the ships ordered for delivery in the next six or seven years exceed the requirements of the neopanamax locks, Vásquez said.

Those 20% of ships represent 47% of the container capacity that will move until 2030, he added.

In the long term, the Panama Canal will see its fleet composition migrate, knowing that those ships that exceed capacity to transit through the Panama Canal will simply use different routes.

Given this reality, the challenge for The Panama Canal is to find solutions continue to be a relevant route for international trade.’

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1,909 (71.86%) of traffic during the first half of the year took place through Panamax locks.

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1,706 (28.14%) transits were vessels passing through the Neopanamax locks.

“Phase 3 of the lock set is complete. Time moves quickly in this business and we’re trying to get ahead of ourselves to make sure we’re really delivering the reliability our customers expect,” said Vásquez. The Panama Canal infrastructure is a limitation of transit capacity, he insisted.

This infrastructural limitation has been achieved as we participate more in the market and predictions show that by 2032 the Canal will be operating at full capacity, passing 600 million tonnes of canal, today it is passing approximately 500 to 510 million tonnes of canal.

“The experience with the ship Ever Max has shown the need to complement the operation to ensure that the service is provided when the volume of traffic is much higher, the type of ship and cargo is different from what is going through now,” he said.

In the next eight to ten months, The Panama Canal will explore a number of activities in order to diversify, taking into account that the Supreme Court of Justice has ruled that the Canal has the authority to carry out activities other than the transit of ships.

Need
In order to improve capacity, the Panama Canal must bring together a large amount of technology that it does not currently have or use, such as the world’s first navigational control of the canal. The channel is narrow, the ships are much larger and have a different configuration, so we have to have the necessary maneuverability to be able to move the ship, explains Vásquez.

Likewise, a greater amount of information on the topic of water management will be needed.

Fourth set of locks

At the time the third set was built, a trail was left so that a similar fourth set of locks could be built, however, the infrastructure challenge as such is the availability of water, Vásquez said. In addition, the construction would exceed the cost of the third game by two, some 5.8 billion dollars.

Given this reality, the Panama Canal will seek to increase the amount of trade that passes through Panama. Vásquez also recognizes political phenomena that have generated a segmental deviation such as liquefied natural gas flowing into Europe as a result of the war in Ukraine, and the fact that much of the production taking place in China is finding another type of production further away from the Panama Canal.

Almost 3% of world trade passes through the Panama Canal and represents more than 10% of the country’s income.

During the first semester of 2023, Panamax locks were registered 6 thousand 706 transits, which is equivalent to 71.86% of transitsled with 26% by the bulk carrier segment, 23.5% by chemical tankers and 11.5% by container ships.

Meanwhile, neopamax locks handled 2,706 traffic, 28.14%, led by 47.2% container ship segment, 26.1% gas carriers, 10.8% bulk carriers and other segments.