Reuters reported that one of the world's greatest engineering marvels is being overhauled as work crews blast through hills to widen and deepen the Panama Canal to make room for a new generation of mega ships. Defying the world economic downturn, Panama is spending USD 5.25 billion in the first major expansion of the canal since it was opened in 1914.
It is a monumental undertaking that promises to shake up global trade routes, making it easier and cheaper to transport Asian goods to the eastern United States and giving China better access to Latin American oil and other commodities.
Mr Jay Brickman VP at Crowley Maritime Corporation, whose container shipping division services the Caribbean and eastern United States said that "The whole Panama Canal expansion will have a significant impact on the way business is done from the Far East into the Caribbean and into the US itself. It changes the dynamics and it changes the economy."
The canal, long dreamed of by Spanish colonial rulers as a 50 mile link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and finally built by the United States, risked obsolescence because many new cargo ships are too big to traverse it. Widening the waterway will mean it can handle a huge new breed of container vessels known as post Panamax ships. They can carry up to 12,600 cargo containers, almost three times the current number.
When finished in 2014, the larger shipping lane will allow through tankers capable of carrying 1 million barrels of oil, liquefied natural gas carriers and so called capsize bulk cargo vessels that transport coal, metals and other commodities, slashing weeks off transit times and shifting global trade patterns.
"The expanded canal gives us a
(Sourced from www.reuters.com)
