The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) informed its users in the last few hours that Reservation Condition 3 for the Panamax Locks will be extended until Saturday, September 2, 2023which expands the restrictions for vessels to transit the waterway, keeping the authorized number to a maximum of 32 per day.
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In addition, the suspension of extraordinary reserves, both at the Panamax and Neopanamax locks, will be extended until that date.
Videos circulate on social networks of more than 200 vessels with merchandise that are stuck waiting to be authorized to pass through the Panama Canal. This occurs precisely because of the new provisions that were adopted.
To this is added that the ACP reported that from 4 am on Tuesday, August 22 until 4 pm on Friday the 1st. September the sidewall culvert on the west lane of the Gatun Locks will be out of service for maintenance.
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Although the west lane will remain available, the blockade will require additional time in transit of the area.
This series of restrictions on the interoceanic highway, implemented in recent months due to the fact that the rainy season in Panama arrived late this year, could generate more pressure on the prices of consumer goods, according to some companies and analysts, since the delays and additional fees will be added to the costs of shipping goods by sea.
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🇵🇦 | ATTENTION: More than 200 vessels are stuck on both sides of the Panama Canal waterway as a severe drought cuts off crossings.
A flotilla of ships is stuck on both sides of the Panama Canal, waiting for weeks to cross after… pic.twitter.com/1ASEoKXHGu
– World Alert (@ AlertaMundial2) August 19, 2023
And it is that, as this newspaper reported a few weeks ago, the Panama Canal is desperately looking for water to avoid dying. The decrease in rainfall due to climate change and the El Niño phenomenon have generated a serious emergency that threatens to dry up the route that moves almost 6 percent of world maritime trade.
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According to the agency Reuterson August 16 there were 131 ships with and without reservations lining up to transit the Canal, less than the 161 reported a week ago, according to official data.
The lack of rainfall is such that it has already pushed the canal – which works with fresh water, so it cannot be supplied from the oceans – to reduce from 40 to 32 the number of vessels that have crossed the interoceanic route daily since last 30 July and until further notice in order to save water.
Container ship transits through the Panama Canal.
The Panama Canal connects 180 maritime routes that reach 1,920 ports in 170 countries, and about 6 percent of world trade passes through it. In fiscal year 2022, in fact, the channel delivered to the Panamanian Government the historic annual amount of 2,494.4 million dollars. Since 1914, more than a million ships have crossed the route, whose main users are the United States, China, Japan and Chile.
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Water is the source of energy that moves the ships in the locks, the compartment that allows ships to pass from one section to another. At the locks, the ships are raised 26 meters above sea level to cross the isthmus and are then lowered upon arrival in the other ocean.
But the channel is not immune to the effect of the climate crisis either. For the transit of more than 14,000 ships a year, this interoceanic route is fed by the artificial lakes Gatún (1913) and Alhajuela (1935), which today reach minimum levels due to the lack of rain.
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