LNG tankers idle near the Panama Canal, which has become shallow due to drought – Kommersant

The administration of the Panama Canal has stepped up restrictions imposed in May on the passage of ships through this waterway due to drought. According to the MarineTraffic shipment tracking system, which leads Financial Times (FT), this decision resulted in schedule delays for 264 vessels. The average waiting time for larger tankers carrying liquefied natural gas through the canal to the north increased from eight days as of July 10 to 18 days as of August 10, according to shipping agency Norton Lilly.

More than 3% of the world’s goods pass through the Panama Canal, including liquefied natural gas from the United States. According to the restrictions introduced until 2024, ships with heavy cargo are prohibited from passing, the number of passages of other ships has been reduced.

In May, the canal administration introduced a 13.4m depth limit for the largest vessels. Since the end of July, the Panama Canal Authority has limited the daily crossings of ships to 32 (the average is 36). Delays, according to market participants, are most likely to affect tankers carrying liquefied gas, since container ships often book access to the canal months in advance. Since the end of June, the average cost of sending a 12-meter container from China to the Gulf Coast to the United States through the channel has increased by 36%, to $2.4 thousand.

The US is the largest user of the Panama Canal, with total US exports and imports of containerized goods accounting for about 73% of the waterway’s traffic. Annually, 40% of all US container traffic with an estimated value of $270 billion passes through it.

The previous time such delays in the passage of ships in the Panama Canal were observed in 2022 and were associated with the consequences of the pandemic and the military conflict in Ukraine, notes CNBC.

The drought in Central America has been going on for months, causing Panama to declare a state of emergency in May.

Maria Fedotova