Why the Panama Canal is Dying
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Real Life Lore ^
| 8/2/24
Why shipping choke points like Panama are FUBAR and getting worse. Long,
detailed explanation of all the problems.
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The Panama Canal Is Running Dry:Climate extremes are wreaking havoc on global shipping. [oh, no]
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Foreign Policy via McKinsey ^
| JANUARY 15, 2024, 8:00 AM | Mie Hoejris Dahl, a Danish freelance journalist based in Mexico City.
For months, a withering drought has created major traffic jams at the Panama Canal. The drought, which may have been exacerbated by climate change, has left the canal’s water levels lower than ever, forcing Panama to let fewer ships through. The
restrictions have led to delays, increased shipping costs, and uncertainty over the future of one of the world’s critical trade chokepoints. “This has fundamentally changed how shipping through the canal works,” said Soren Stokkebaek Andersen, a regional commercial manager at Leth Agencies, a shipping agency.
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2 gas tankers traveled across the Pacific but U-turned just short of the Panama Canal because low water levels have created a traffic jam
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Business Insider ^
| Nov 7, 2023 | Aruni Soni
Two gas tankers crossed the Pacific, then U-turned within 10 miles of the Panama Canal, Bloomberg reported. An
intense drought has lowered the canal's water level, limiting the number of ships that can pass through. That has created a massive backlog of ships waiting to cross, forcing some to seek alternate routes. Two gas tankers crossed the Pacific Ocean, but recently took a U-turn just short of the Panama Canal because of the huge traffic jam caused by low water levels, Bloomberg reported. The tankers, Pyxis Pioneer and the Sunny Bright, were within 10 miles of the canal before they...
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Drought-hit Panama Canal to restrict access for one year
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France 24 ^
Panama City (AFP) – The drought-hit Panama Canal will maintain restrictions on the passage of ships for one year, a measure that has already led to a marine traffic jam as boats line up to enter the waterway linking two oceans. The
canal is facing a shortage of rainwater needed to transfer ships through locks that function like water elevators, an engineering marvel that moves six percent of the world's maritime commerce up and over the isthmus between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The canal's sub-administrator Ilya Espino, told AFP that unless heavy rains fall in the next three months,...
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Panama Canal Drying Up And Hundreds Of Ships Are Stuck
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Giant Freaking Robot via MSN ^
| 8-19-2023 | Kevin C. Neece
In what is being called the “world’s worst traffic jam,” some 200 cargo ships are waiting to pass at the Panama Canal as, thanks to global climate change, the area experiences its worst drought in 100 years. As
Futurism reports, the huge backlog has been growing for some time and might not get any better for a few weeks yet. The human-made passageway is famous not only as one of the world’s most impressive feats of engineering but as one of the most important trade routes on Earth. "..the flow of ships at the Panama Canal started at about 1,000...
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Drought Causes 154-Ship Traffic Jam at Panama Canal
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Jalopnik Website ^
| Erin Marquis
The Panama Canal, one of the major shipping routes through which 40 percent of container goods sold in America travels, currently has a 21-day wait time for ships attempting to make the passage. And
the situation will only get worse before it gets better. The number of vessels waiting to sneak between North and South America currently stands at 154. The traffic jam is thanks to a severe drought that has afflicted the area since this Spring. About $270 billion in cargo travels through the canal every year... snip Not only are reservations for making it through the canal cut...
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China tightens stranglehold on Latin America and Caribbean... as Biden dithers: Generals warn that Beijing has built a SPACE STATION in Argentina that could blind US, signed 21 countries up to trade pact and bought key ports on Panama Canal
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UK Daily Mail ^
| May 14 2023 | LEWIS PENNOCK
As headlines about the frosty relationship between China and the United States are dominated by spy balloons, Taiwan and botched attempts at diplomacy, commanders in the Pentagon are increasingly worried by a more insidious threat: Beijing's growing stronghold on Latin America. From tens of billions of dollars in funding for key infrastructure
projects across the region to its own secretive, military-run space station in Argentina that could target American satellites, China's presence has grown. Some 21 countries in Latin America are signed up to Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative - a defining policy introduced by President Xi Jinping in 2013...
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How Florida could save Christmas: Port authority tells cargo vessels waiting to dock in California to divert via Panama Canal to The Sunshine State where there are NO backlogs
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UK Daily Mail ^
| 10/21/2021 | MIchelle Thompson
A Florida port authority is inviting steamships waiting to dock in California to divert via the Panama Canal to the sunshine state, where there are no backlogs. The
Jacksonville Port Authority said it’s the solution to an unprecedented logjam at The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where weeks-long queues are slowing commerce ahead of the year’s busiest shopping season. It’s a sharp contrast from the scene in Jacksonville, which officials said has maintained terminal fluidity – and set a new container volume record - despite market disruptions. Florida ports council president Michael Rubin said they can expedite cargo...
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Coronavirus Update: Contradictions Over Reported Panama Canal Transit Permission For Holland America Ships
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CBS Miami ^
| March 29, 2020 | Staff
<p>Later that night, Holland America released a statement that it was working to facilitate the transit for the Zaandam and Rotterdam.</p> <p>“We are aware of reported permission for both Zaandam and Rotterdam to transit the Panama Canal in the near future. We
greatly appreciate this consideration in the humanitarian interest of our guests and crew. This remains a dynamic situation, and we continue to work with the Panamanian authorities to finalize details,” Holland America’s statement read.</p>
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America's highest paid union at existential risk from widened Panama Canal
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americanthinker.com ^
| 3/21/2019 | C Street
West Coast Longshore and Warehouse Union, whose members earn average wages and benefits of $285,000 by raising labor hell, is facing existential risk from the widened Panama Canal. The San Francisco Chronicle described the 42,000 card-carrying International Longshore and Warehouse Union members that since 1934 has maintained iron-fisted control of all 29
West Coast commercial ports, "the aristocrats of the working class." ILWU full-time workers receive an average of $175,000 in annual wages, along with a non-wage benefits package costing more than $110,000 per active worker per year. Benefits include fully paid health care, employer 401(k) matching, 13 paid holidays,...
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Panama Canal Working to Increase LNG Vessel Capacity as Demand Grows
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gCaptain ^
| Feb. 21, 2018 | gCaptain Staff
The LNG carrier Oak Spirit transits the Expanded Panama Canal with a cargo LNG loaded from Cheniere’s Sabine Pass terminal. Photo
Credit: Teekay Executives from U.S. LNG exporter Cheniere Energy met with representatives from the Panama Canal this week in Panama to discuss the waterway’s growing LNG vessel segment. (Underlines mine.) Since the opening of the Expanded Panama Canal in 2016, LNG has emerged as the fastest-growing segment for the waterway in part due to the United States emergence as a gas supplier to Asia and other global markets. To date, the Canal’s Neopanamax locks have transited more than 280...
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Germany Building ‘Panama Canal on Railway Tracks’ Through South America
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https :// www . thetrumpet . com / 16674 - germany - building - panama - canal - on - railway - tracks - through - south - america ^
Bolivian President Evo Morales met with German and Swiss officials in Bern, Switzerland, on December 14 to sign an agreement on building one of the largest infrastructure projects of the century—a coast-to-coast railroad across South America. The Central Bi-Oceanic Railway Corridor, or “Panama Canal on Railway Tracks,” will stretch from the Pacific
coast of Peru, through Bolivia, and across Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean. The total length of the projected route is 2,333 miles. Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay also plan to add connection routes to the corridor. Germany and Switzerland will assist in the ambitious project’s construction and will also...
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American Gas Exporters Looking for Even-Shorter Shortcut Through Mexico, Bypassing Panama Canal
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Bloomberg via gCaptain ^
| Oct 24, 2017 | Ryan Collins and Lucia Kassai
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Southern U.S. Ports Break Records One Year After Panama Canal Expansion
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gcaptain ^
| June 14, 2017 | Rebecca Spalding
[Bloomberg] The expansion also coincided with a population boom that has made the south home to 10 of the 15 fastest growing cities, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, meaning there is a growing market for goods being imported. At
the same time, manufacturing growth throughout the south means shipping lines also can pick up American-made exports to transport abroad.
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Old photo: Humans digging the Panama Canal
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Bath-built destroyer breaks down, towed out of Panama Canal
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BDN ^
| Nov 22, 2016 | Beth Brogan
BATH, Maine — The Bath-built USS Zumwalt, the first-in-class “stealth” destroyer that left the Bath shipyard on Sept. 7, broke down Monday night while passing through the Panama Canal and was towed by tugs through the locks toward the Pacific Ocean. The DDG 1000, the first of a class of three destroyers
that cost an estimated $22 billion combined, “suffered an engineering casualty,” the Navy Times reported. The Zumwalt was towed through the locks to Rodman, a former U.S. military base.
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U.S. Navy’s Newest Littoral Combat Ship Damaged (Again) in Panama Canal
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gcaptain ^
| November 1, 2016 | Mike Schuler
The U.S. Navy’s newest littoral combat ship USS Montgomery has had its hull cracked for a second time after hitting a lock wall during a transit of the Panama Canal, the U.S. Navy has confirmed. The
latest incident occurred Saturday, Oct. 29 during southbound transit of the Panama Canal’s old locks on its way to its homeport in San Diego
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Panama Canal is a big deal again. (Carter gave it away in 1977)
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CNBC | 5/9/2016 | Memphis Moe
"A century after transforming global trade and markets, the Panama Canal is about to revamp world trade once again. On
June 26 the canal is scheduled to reopen after a massive project costing more than $5 billion that will allow bigger ships to pass through the 102-year-old waterway, doubling cargo capacity. U.S.-based businesses are recognizing the new growth opportunities. Many logistics experts predict the expansion of the so-called Panamex may shift international trade routes, allowing ships to reach Asia from the U.S. Gulf Coast more than two weeks faster than going east through the Suez Canal." Excerpt; full story at...
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Panama Canal expansion seen to open by July
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Manila Bulletin | March 23, 2016 | NAUREEN S. MALIK
The expansion of the Panama Canal, a $5.3 billion project almost two years behind schedule and plagued by cost overruns and contractor disputes, is expected to open by the end of June, according to the agency that operates the waterway. The
Panama Canal Authority has resolved problems associated with contractors and seepage from the new locks discovered during testing, said Jose Ramon Arango, senior international trade specialist at the agency that operates the 50-mile (77- kilometer) waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The authority is planning a test of the new locks with a tanker in May...
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April Opening of the Panama Canal Expansion Unlikely
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gcaptain.com ^
| December 22, 2015 | Mike Schuler
A delayed opening of the Panama Canal expansion past the April 2016 deadline is looking more and more likely as 2015 comes to a close and work continues to repair a crack that formed in one of the new lock complexes. Panama
Canal Authority (ACP) Administrator Jorge Quijano gave an update on the expansion project at an industry event in Panama City on Friday, telling attendees that the project now stands at 96% complete and assuring that delivery is still expected in the second quarter of 2016, even though a final date remains to be determined.
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