2023-08-29 08:19:49
The Panama Canal, one of the nerve centers of world maritime trade, has been confronted for weeks with an unprecedented situation: the drought affecting this tropical zone usually characterized by generous rainfall has led its manager to extend, on 26 August, the traffic restrictions decided at the end of July.
The number of ships authorized to use this passageway between the Atlantic and the Pacific thus remains limited to 32, compared to the usual 40. The draft reduced to 13 meters also obliges them to limit their cargo. These measures will remain in force for a year, barring heavy rains which would change the situation.
6% of sea freight traffic
On the outskirts of this 80 kilometer long canal, which sees 6% of the world’s maritime trade pass each year, there is a traffic jam. At least 130 ships are on hold, a figure that had reached 160 at the height of August. Waiting times have come down, from nineteen to eleven days, but remain much higher than the three to five days observed in normal times.
As The Load Star, a specialized information site, writes, shipowners who had not booked for a long time must resort to an auction system, the cost of a passage then being able to rise to 1 million dollars (€930,000). This same media indicates that some players in the sector are resigned to unloading their cargo to pass it by rail from one ocean coast to another.
An additional cost related to the immobilization of the goods
“At this stage, these provisions should not have major consequences because maritime traffic, subject to strong seasonality, is rather calm.analyzes Jean-Pascal Bidoire, General Delegate of Shipping Agents and Consignees of France. But the situation could become tense with the peak of trade as Christmas approaches. »
” In any case, he continues, the additional cost linked to the immobilization of the goods and the impossibility of optimizing loading could encourage some to circumvent South America via Cape Horn. » Enough to lengthen the route by ten thousand kilometres. Without necessarily going that far, several carriers have already announced that they will adjust their prices upwards to take into account the restrictions concerning the channel.
The name of El Niño
The authority at the head of this infrastructure inaugurated in 1914 evokes in a press release “a stretching dry season, with high levels of evaporation”, as well as “high probability” to see the El Niño phenomenon occur by the end of the year. This is a warming of a good part of the equatorial Pacific, both a consequence and amplification of climate change, and synonymous with drought in Central America.
The Panama Canal needs phenomenal quantities of fresh water (200 million liters per boat) to supply the many locks that make it possible to cross the mountainous isthmus. However, the neighboring lakes from which this water comes are also used to supply half of the country’s 4.3 million inhabitants.
#drought #forces #traffic #reduced