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AN AMERICAN
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34 DC VELOCITY JANUARY 2019 www.dcvelocity.com
A DOUBLING OF CAPACITY
The Panama Canal expansion was
designed to accommodate the
growing number of container and
bulk ships that are too large for the
original infrastructure. The project
included the construction of a set of
new locks, on both the Atlantic and
Pacific ends of the canal, that are 70
feet wider and 18 feet deeper than
the locks in the original waterway. A
massive excavation created a second,
larger lane of traffic, essentially dou-
bling the canal’s capacity.
The original canal continues to
operate, handling Panamax-size
(meaning ships of the maximum length,
width, and depth to pass through the
original infrastructure) and smaller ves-
sels. The “Neopanamax” size for the new
lane is approximately 1,200 feet long, 168
feet wide, and 47 feet deep. The lane has
handled containerships that are nearly
that size and have capacities of more than
14,000 containers, measured in 20-foot
equivalent units (TEUs). Some ships will
still be too large for the lane, but the canal
authority (known by the Spanish acro-
nym ACP) says it can now accommodate
96 percent of the containerships currently
in service.
Panama, which has built its economy
around the canal’s role as an efficient
route connecting Asia, North America,
and Europe, will be the primary beneficiary of the expansion. Panama’s government also sees the expansion as supporting the country’s bid to be the primary trans-shipment hub for the Western
Hemisphere. U.S. businesses, too, stand
to benefit, as about 60 percent of all cargo
passing through the canal has an origin or
destination in the United States.
WHO BENEFITS?
Perhaps the first to see direct benefits
from the expanded canal were bulk ocean
carriers. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) and
other giant bulk vessels can now pass
through Panama, reducing both transit
times and operating costs compared with
some of their traditional routes. This
new user class contributed to the canal’s
9.5-percent year-on-year increase in tonnage in its fiscal year 2018.
Container business is on the upswing
too. The expanded canal has so far
attracted 16 new container services, and
in August 2018, the canal set a record for
monthly container tonnage, said Argelis
Moreno de Ducreux, head of ACP’s Liner
Services Segment, in an interview published in the canal’s monthly e-newsletter. Since the expansion, she added, the
average size of containerships transiting
the waterway has increased by 28 percent.
ACP’s figures indicate that some carriers are moving more containers with
fewer, bigger ships, suggesting that carriers are seeing lower operating costs
per container. That may be true, but
