Panama Canal opens $5B locks, bullish despite shipping woes

The new, larger Panama Canal locks will allow most Very Large Gas Carriers (VLGC), the type of ship that carries propane and other hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL), to transit, likely reducing or even ending the practice of ship-to-ship transfers.

As the Panama Canal Authority estimates, the expanded Panama Canal will lessen sailing times between the ports on Atlantic Ocean and Asia by as much as sixteen days for those vessels that could not earlier pass through the canal.

From that point on, the channel opened 102 years ago with American engineering will be able to accommodate ships carrying as many as 14,000 containers – almost three times the amount hauled through the canal by vessels up to now.

Anticipation of the new high-capacity lane sparked a global investment trend that dwarfed the canal expansion price tag, as ports from Rotterdam to NY to Brazil prepared to welcome the megaships. It will pay all fees normally associated with a canal transit on Sunday.

After almost a decade of expansion Panama this weekend is officially getting ready to open its canal too far bigger cargo ships boosting global trade and transit revenues. The chambers of the new locks are 1,400 feet long, 180 feet wide and 60 feet deep. The ship, the largest that can go through the old canal locks was redirected to the new ones for one more test of the new lock system.

The first major excavation work on the Nicaragua canal was delayed and is now meant to begin at the end of this year, but the Nicaraguan government has been notably coy about the status of the project and some wonder if it will ever happen.

But Panamanian trade analyst Ernest Bazan said that Panama’s reputation has “unfortunately been affected (by the Panama Papers) and that undoubtedly affects the business climate, including the Panama Canal”. The canal expansion involved deepening and widening certain portions of the canal and constructing an additional, larger set of locks.

The canal was under US control until a 1977 agreement between Presidents Jimmy Carter and Omar Torrijos paved the way for its transfer to Panama on December 31, 1999. The $5.25 billion expansion of the Panama can… The expansion will also allo…

“They are hoping to turn this country into a trans-shipping centre for the whole world and for the region”, she said.

As the digital countdown clocks set up around town tick down to zero, and the first neo-Panamax ship, from the Chinese Cosco company, slips into the expanded locks, this country will celebrate.

“Let us not forget that with the positive elements that come from this expansion of the canal, there are also some dangers as well”, said William Brownfield, assistant secretary of State for worldwide narcotics and law enforcement affairs.

Unlike the old canal, where electric locomotives and guide wires position ships for their passage through the locks, tugboats will guide ships through the new locks and actually enter the locks with them.

“We knew from the beginning that it was going to be a hard project”, Zarak said.