Panama Canal achieves record 442.1 million tons transited through this route
Posted on 2018-10-11
The Panama Canal achieved a new record after reaching the 442.1 million tons (CP / SUAB) trafficked by that waterway at the end of fiscal year 2018, 9.5 percent more than that recorded in the same period of the year past, informed an official source today.
This figure exceeds 429.4 million tons of CP / SUAB (volume measurement of the Universal System of Ship Arcing of the Panama Canal) projected for 2018, like the tonnage of 2017, which closed with 403.8 million tons, said in a statement the administration of the waterway.
The source did not provide income data for tolls in fiscal year 2018, which in the previous period reached 2,238 million dollars, 15.8 percent more than in the fiscal year 2016.
The Board of Directors of the Canal Authority of Panama (ACP) approved in the fiscal year 2017 remitting surpluses to the National Treasury for 1,194 million dollars, which represented an increase of 89.2 percent with respect to fiscal year 2016.
Also, to the economic surplus was added 454 million dollars in concept of right per tonne of transit through the Canal, plus 2 million in payment for services rendered to the Canal by other entities of the State in 2017.
In fiscal year 2018, the container ships it was the segment with the highest load, contributing 159.0 million tons, including 112.6 million tons that transited the expanded Canal.
It was followed by tankers, which included liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) ships and natural liquefied gas (LNG) ships (130.3 million tons); and vehicle carriers, (49.5 million tons).
"The Panama Canal continues to exceed our expectations, reinforcing more and more the importance of the expansion of the interoceanic highway and its impact on global maritime trade, due to the efforts of all our collaborators that have made this an extraordinary year" said the administrator of the road, Jorge Luis Quijano.
During this fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2017 and ended on September 30, the main users of the channel were China, Chile, the United States, Japan and Mexico.
While the main routes traveled during this period were between the east coast of the United States and Asia, the east coast of the United States and the west coast of South America, Europe and the west coast of South America, the east coast of the United States and the west coast of Central America and the coast at the expense of South America.
For the channel, built by the US At the beginning of the last century and transferred to Panama on December 31, 1999, it passes close to 6% of world trade and joins more than 140 maritime routes and 1,700 ports in 160 different countries.
The road put into service in June 2016 its first expansion, a monumental work with a cost of at least 5,600 million dollars, consisting of a new lane to make way for the Neopanamax, ships with up to three times the load capacity (up to 14,000 containers) of those that pass through the operational locks since 1914.
Source: La Estrella
