Drought conditions at the Panama Canal are expected to end soon with normal operations resuming by 2025, according to canal officials quoted by Freight Waves.
Ships faced long delays last year at the Panama Canal – one of the world’s busiest trade routes linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans – as shallow water levels caused by drought conditions reduced the number of vessels able to pass through it.
With around half of all container volumes from China and East Asia passing through the 80km Panama Canal to the US East Coast, the drought and subsequent operational impact had led to increased delays at the Port of Savannah from an average of three days last May to nearly nine in late March, the 15 April report said.
The state-owned Panama Canal Authority (ACP) had now signalled a return to normal operations, allocating three extra transit slots to Panamax vessels on 25 March – bringing the total number of reservations to 27/day, the report said.
The man-made Gatun Lake, which supplies the canal’s water supply, had been boosted by recent rainfall, leading to an increase in traffic.
According to data from Clarksons, transits are currently at 60% of the volume in 2022, when conditions were normal.
Transits of product tankers and container ships had almost fully recovered, with both types averaging near 90% of normal activity, Freight Waves wrote.
According to forecasts by the US National Weather Services’ Climate Prediction Center, the region’s warm and dry El Niño conditions were expected to end in the coming months and there was a 60% chance of La Niña conditions developing by August, which would bring cooler temperatures and potentially increased rainfall.
Although long-term plans for the waterway were dependent on weather conditions, the ACP said it was optimistic that canal operations would return to normal by 2025.
Meanwhile, the ACP recently proposed a US$2bn project that would dam the nearby Indio River and then drill an 8km mountain tunnel connecting the newly constructed reservoir to Gatun Lake. The six-year project was estimated to allow between 11-15/day additional transits through the canal.
However, the proposal had been criticised by local farmers, whose land was at risk of being flooded by the adjacent reservoir, Freight Waves wrote.
