The impact of the Panama Canal’s third lane, set to open in two years, will have major impacts in the way the world do businesses, with coal producers from Colombia, Kentucky and Virginia, as well as Brazilian iron producers and Chile’s copper mines being the most benefited.
According to MundoMaritimo.cl (in Spanish), giant ships carrying coal from north eastern Colombia and iron ore from Brazil soon will be able to take the commodity directly to China through the canal. The new option will be cheaper than the current routes and is expected to boost those industries and create jobs.
Chilean copper producers, in turn, will find it a simpler and less expensive way to export the red metal to European markets.
“It is not the same to send one ship carrying 5,000 containers than one carrying 10,000,” told MundoMaritimo engineer Aleman Zubieta, chairman of a committee involved in the channel development since 1995.
“Low transportation costs will unveil a world of opportunities for Latin American miners,” he added.
When the third lane opens, reports Detroit Free Press, the canal’s capacity will more than double. Vessel as long as 1,200 feet and up to 160 feet wide, with drafts as deep as 50 feet, will be frequent users of the channel. The largest ships will carry as many as 13,200 containers — at least double the dry weight of bulk cargo that can pass through today.
On completion of its current expansion the Panama Canal should be able to handle ships with a carrying capacity of between 120,000 and 130,000 DWT (deadweight tons).
Major corporations, including Caterpillar, Dell, Procter & Gamble and Mexico’s Cemex have already turned to Panama as a headquarters for regional operations.
2 Comments
ramisle
The new Canal expansion will have more of an effect on Containerships.
Here is a report from Dr. Martin Stopford from Clarkson;s shipping.
Defining a Panamax…
Its success is attested by the growth in the number of vessels that use it. In the last financial year traffic through the Canal amounted to 13,000 transits (82% laden) carrying a total of 222m tons of cargo. However, that is a relatively modest share of world trade and does represent less than one laden transit per vessel per year for eligible bulk carriers and containerships.
Traffic necessarily has been restricted by the dimensions of the Canal, 32.3m beam and 12.04m draft, despite the best efforts of naval architects to squeeze larger size Panamax vessels out of the limitations. And, the post-Panamax has become commonplace; the first such containership appeared in 1988, the first bulk carrier many years before that.
A New Definition…
However, the centenary will offer a second milestone. After much deliberation the Panama Canal expansion project got under way in 2007 and its near completion by 2014 will re-define the meaning of a Panamax vessel, and, quite possibly, the future course of shipping like the original Canal. As the Graph of the Week shows, the key limiting dimensions of the Canal will increase to 49m beam and 15.2m draft, while the length limitation of 366m will be no bar to any vessel type.
New Opportunities…
In terms of the current bulk carrier fleet, this will leave draft as the only limiting factor for transit of the Canal (see Graph). As a result, only a handful of the 3,769 vessels of 50-120,000dwt (258m dwt in total) will face a restriction, while a further 1,329 larger vessels (of 248m dwt in total) will be able to transit the Canal with less than a full cargo, as current Panamax vessels have to do.
The super-boom in shipbuilding means that there are currently 1,238 vessels of 50-120,000 dwt (90m dwt) and 267 larger vessels (59m dwt) on order that will also become eligible for using the Canal. It will be open for business to a far larger number of vessels than hitherto. The real question is whether there is the volume of trade over the route to support the number of vessels that can use it.
Missing the Boat…?
The expanded capacity of the Canal will provide a new and possibly more efficient trade route for the shipping industry. But the emergence of China and Asia and the growth of east-west trade has already taken place without it. The challenge for the Canal is again to change the course of shipping; to compete to capture a bigger share of the existing trade and encourage more traffic in the new bigger Panamax vessels. Hopefully it has not already missed the boat.
ramisle
You’ve got to be kidding. This came from someone in the Maritime sector?
Mundo Maritimo needs a new engineer.
They are mixing container ships with dry bulk ships.You don’t ship coal or iron ore in containers.
And the vast majority of iron ore is shipped in Capesize, capacity 180,000 dwt. Or in the new VLOC’s built by Vale, with a capacity of 400,000 dwt.
It might be of some significance to Colombia, But not for Brazil, at least not Vale.
The Current Panamax sized ship (80,000 dwt.), cannot be fully loaded, because parts of the Canal are only 38 ft. deep. A depth of 50 ft will fix that.
And the new class of Post Panamax ship will be used, but there are few of them, and given the massive glut of dry bulk ships, it will be years before there are enough to make a difference.