36, 50, 110 – going, going, gone...
Water levels in the Panama Canal. 15 August marked the 110th anniversary of the first official passage of a ship, the USA’s SS Ancon, through the Panama Canal, thus inaugurating the key global channel. This year maritime trade, for which the artificial waterway at the junction between North and South America is a particularly sensitive bottleneck, had to contend with low water levels. Ingenuity prevailed.
This year’s anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal coincided with a historic challenge posed by a drought that Panama faced at the beginning of 2024. It was the worst since the canal’s expansion in 2016 and affected the Gatún and Alhajuela reservoirs, with the waters sinking to levels that were rarely reached in the last 110 years.
Despite these challenges and thanks to the work and dedication of its staff the canal was able to immediately implement a hydro-operational strategy aimed at optimising water savings, prioritising the water supply of more than half of Panama’s 4.5 million inhabitants.
Currently, the rainy season is gradually helping the reservoirs to recover to water levels typical for this time of year. At the same time, the canal remains focused on improving reliability, efficiency and responsiveness to the changing needs of the shipping industry.
Long-term slot-booking system
Thus the canal authority informed the public that from 15 August the maximum permissible draught allowed for vessels passing through the neo-panamax locks would be 50 ft (15.24 m), based on the current and forecast level of Lake Gatún over the coming weeks.
Moreover, they gave notice that an additional transit slot for the panamax locks will be available from 1 September. This increases the total number of reserved slots to 36 a day, with the distribution being 26 slots for panamax and ten for neo-panamax vessels.
For the latter, the canal authority has announced the introduction of a new booking method as part of the transit booking system, namely the ‘long-term slot-allocation system’ (Lotsa). The aim is to increase transit security and flexibility for customers. This will offer different market segments several transit booking slot packages corresponding to January of the following year.
Slots to be auctioned
These packages and their characteristics will be published on www.pancanal.com, based on the expected availability of booking slots, and will be auctioned to the highest bidder. The auction amount of the sealed bid corresponds to the maximum amount the customer is willing to pay for each slot included in the package, with the starting price amounting to USD 200,000.