SAINT SIMONS ISLAND, GEORGIA (FEBRUARY 8, 2016) – Completion of the Panama Canal expansion project is less than three months away, a high-ranking official at the Panama Canal Authority told attendees of the Georgia Foreign Trade Conference here. 

“We are about eight to 10 weeks away from completion,” said Oscar Bazán, executive vice president for planning and business development. “We have been talking to our contractors, and the date [the expansion will open for testing] remains between the last week of April or early May, for a commercial opening in July.”

The expansion comes none too soon for the canal, which reached maximum capacity of 340 million tons in 2015. “We also broke records in terms of revenue, with US$2.6 billion this past year,” Bazán said.

As of December, the canal’s expansion progress was tabbed at 96%. Bazán said an update is expected tomorrow (February 9, Panama time), “and most probably we will be moving to 97% progress.”

As tonnage has increased, the number of transits remains nearly unchanged from years ago, thanks to the steady increase in vessel size. The canal saw 13,660 vessel transits in 2013 compared to 13,874 in 2015. Reported tonnage in 2013 was 320.6 million tons, compared to 340.8 million tons in 2015.

Bazán said that the steady growth seaborne trade has been reflected in tonnage growth going through the canal. According to canal statistics, 16% of US exports use the canal, and 7% of US imports. US exports and imports combined represent 68% of all canal traffic, he said.

(See the February issue of Asia Cargo News for additional reporting.)