Panama Canal Moving Back Towards Capacity

After a year of being impacted by severe drought, the Panama Canal has finally started to move back towards its capacity, as more daily passages are set to be available in May.

The region has recently witnessed plenty of rainfall and the longer-term forecast is positive ahead of the rainy season. This has led the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) lifting the maximum daily vessel passages to 27 and confirming they will be increasing to 31 next month.

This will still be some way short of the 38 passages per day that are allowed during normal conditions, but is a considerable improvement on the low of 20 passages per day in January.

The ACP had been gradually reducing the daily vessel passages during the past twelve months due to a record-breaking drought, which was believed to be linked to the el-nino weather effect.

Two artificial lakes feed water into the Canal's tiered lock system to floats ships through it. However, water levels in the lakes have been dramatically low since this time last year, which has severely hampered the waterway's operations.  

The news that the Panama Canal seems to be heading back towards normal conditions will be a boost for the shipping industry, especially since it is the continent's only crossing point for containerships.

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