Displaying items by tag: PANAMA

After the construction of a third new set of locks ( thanks to the collaboration of the "Grupo Unidos por el Canal - GUPC, Salini Impregilo, Jan de Nul and Constructora Urbana - GUPA) in date June 26, 2016 was finally inaugurated the Panama Canal.

The Autoridad of Panama Canal announced that the operning ceremony will be delayed to June 2016 (instead of April 2016 as previously planned)

due to some locks that needs maintenance works.

  The brand new Panama Canal is almost ready (it has been reached almost 90% of the works).

The construction of the third navigational flow and of the set of locks, in addition to ensure the transit of 
Post Panamax  ships, will facilitate traffic throughout Isthmus allowing on one hand, to have a daily transit 
up to 12-14 ships , on the other hand, the increase in the value goods transported up to $ 1 billion per 
day. 

In December 2014 works for the construction of the new inter-oceanic canal in Nicaragua could start, a work which costs about $ 40 billion and which is going to be completed within 5 years or so.

Officially, the new channel will be 278 km long with a maximum width of 500 meters, which will start from the town of Brito (in the Pacific Ocean) to flow into the Caribbean at Punta Gorda via Lake Nicaragua.

After the announce of the building constructions of the Nicaragua Canal and of the consequently answer of the Panama Canal, there was obviously the answer of one of the biggest canals of the world: the Suez Canal.

The Suez Canal it’s an artificial ship canal situated in Egypt westerly to the Sinai Peninsula between Port Said (Bûr Sa'îd) on the Mediterranean Sea and Suez. It allows ships to travel between Europe and Asia without circumnavigating Africa on the sailing route of Cape of Good Hope.

Friday, 1^st of August 2014. The Autoridad of the Canal de Panamá (ACP) and the Consortium Grupos Unidos por el Canal (GUPC), (composed of the Spanish Sacyr Callehermoso, the Italian Salini-Impregilo, the Belgian Jan de Nul and the Panamanian Urban Construction), signed the contract’s variation that will be needed to complete the construction of the third set of locks of the Panama Canal, that’s to say the main intervention of the expansion project of the Central American canal that will double the capacity of the Panama Canal by 2015, allowing the transit of larger ships.

In fact, today, the current system of locks allows the transit of ships like the Panamax vessels, with a capacity of 4,400 TEUs, a maximum length of 294 meters, a maximum width of 32 meters and a draft of 12 meters; but thanks to the creation of the Third Set of Locks of the Canal vessels of greater tonnage called Post Panamax with a capacity of up to 12,000 TEUs, a length of 366 meters, a width of 49 meters, a draft of 15 meters will be able to transit.

The expansion project of the Panama Canal in addition to the widening and lowering of the bottom of the navigation channel, plans to construct two new locks, one each on the Atlantic and Pacific sides and  Each will have three watertight chambers with water-saving basins.

This expansion project will be financially profitable to Panama promoting the increase of the trade market thanks to the future transit of Post-Panamax in addition to an increase of employment.

The challenge between Panama and Nicaragua is still on, a challenge that seems to be at the very beginning!

The extension work of the third axis of the Panama Canal have slowed down again due to a strike nine days long announced by the Suntracs labour union aiming to a pay raise.

Works for the expansion of the Panama Canal by GUPC (Grupo Unidos por el Canal ) have started again. The GUPC, a consortium, is led by the Spanish company Sacyr and in which we also find the Italian Salini-Impregilo.

The construction works had been stopped before due to the breach of negotiations on the additional costs of 1,6 billion dollars (a price equal to half of the commission value of 3,3 billion dollars), but after several negotiations and the Consortium threat of suspending works if the Panamanian authorities had failed to provide the additional funds necessary to the conclusion of the Canal, Panama Canal Authority and the consortium GUPC have reached a partial agreement.

The Ortega government of Nicaragua approved the realization of an "alternative route" of transit between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean less than 300 km from Panama. 

The project is worth 30 billion Euros and is going to be built by HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment co, one of the many giants in Chinese fee that, in exchange for a concession of 50 years on the toll ( contract that can be renewable for another 50 years) and the use of the channel, will be in charge of the construction. 

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.