Panama Canal Shipments: Less Frequent But Much Heavier
Panama Canal transits stabilized at 13-14k, but tonnage surged with NeoPanamax ships tripling capacity.
From the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 to the early 1980s, the number of ships crossing each year increased proportionally to the tonnage crossing. Starting in the 1980s, companies began optimizing their boats to carry bigger containers; therefore, while the number of transits stabilized at around 13-14k per year, the tonnage gradually increased.
The Panama Canal authorities embarked on an expansion project to accommodate the increasingly bigger boats, installing a new set of locks to handle the new sizes.
The project, inaugurated in 2016, doubled the capacity of the Canal by adding a new lane of traffic and allowing for more and bigger ships. The size of these ships is known as “NeoPanamax,” which allows for 3x the capacity as the previous model. Economies of scale are visible on the chart: Tonnage has surged, while the number of transits has not changed significantly.
See you next year! 🥂