April 5, 2006

Panamax no longer?

Panama Canal set for $7.5bn revamp

The body that runs it has now decided that it is about time the waterway had a major refit.

It has approved plans for a $7.5bn (£4.3bn) widening of the vital trade route.

Two new 3-chamber locks will be built at the Pacific and Atlantic ends of the canal, creating a third lane of traffic capable of handling large container ships and tankers that have previously been too wide.

Workers will also prepare new approach channels and dredge existing ones, ensuring that the canal can take the biggest cargo vessels.

The project will take about seven years and employ up to 8,000 people.

This will through the classes of large ships out of wack. There is currently a class of ship called a Panamax designed to JUST fit into the Panama canal system. I belive there either are or will be ships that are bigger then Suezmax (the largest class now) in the near future. That will suddenly make Panamax bigger then Suezmax... I wonder if they will introduce a PanamaxII or something. Since they aren't going to retire the old lock system they are just introducing new locks they could just add a new designation for ships not too big for the new locks but too big for the old locks.

From wikipedia:

The following designations are not exclusive to tankers and are applied to a broad range of cargo vessels, however some were developed initially for tankers.
  • Suezmax - an acronym for a vessel that can transit the Suez Canal, typically measuring 125,000 - 200,000 deadweight.
  • Aframax - an acronym for the American Freight Rate Association, with vessels typically measuring 80,000 - 125,000 deadweight.
  • Panamax - an acronym for a vessel that can transit the Panama Canal, typically measuring 50,000 - 79,000 deadweight.
  • MR - an acronym for "Medium Range", typically measuring 38,000 - 50,000 deadweight
  • GP - an acronym for "General Purpose", typically measuring less than 38,000 deadweight
 Posted by pqbon at April 5, 2006 12:51 PM