In recent years the shipping companies have implemented very explicit and aggressive policies to cut costs, acting on the reduction of the fleets’ speed. On the other hand, trade policies have proved to be more aggressive, leading companies to compete for the same loads through the reduction of freight rates, sometimes even below the break-even level.

The largest global player in shipping container, MAERSK LINE is going to stop shipping routes through the Panama Canal for the transport of goods from Asia to the United States, diverting this traffic via Suez aboard larger vessels.
The solution will then use for this ship traffic of 9,000 TEUs via Suez, instead of the 4,500-TEUs via Panama.

MAERSK announced that the last passage through Panama will be carried out next April 7th, 2013, and the first such service through Suez will take place a week later.

This is clearly a strategic choice dictated by the desire to halve the use of ships.

The reason for this choice is to be found in the increase in transit tariffs for the Panama Canal: in recent years those have tripled to a total of $ 450,000 for the passage of a ship of 4,500 TEUs.

The Panama Canal accounts for about 5% of the total global cargo’s traffic (14k ships/year) and it is currently the subject of massive expansion work to be completed by June 2015 with an expected delay of 6 months compared to planned at a cost estimated at $ 5.2 billion.