Large infrastructure may be a wager placed years before anyone can see how it will pay off. The builders perhaps pour concrete against a forecast, then wait to learn whether the world arrives as predicted.
On June 11, 2016, the container vessel COSCO Shipping Panama set sail from the Greek Port of Piraeus to make the inaugural transit of the Expanded Panama Canal. The inauguration was set for Sunday, June 26. The ship became the first vessel to move from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean via the newly-enlarged Panama Canal, greeted by a crowd at the Cocoli locks.
Why spend a decade widening a canal?
Perhaps because ship sizes were moving past what the old locks could take. The canal's operator said the project doubles the waterway's cargo capacity and lets Neopanamax ships transit, providing greater economies of scale to global commerce. The inaugural Neopanamax containership alone is 299.98 meters in length and 48.25 meters in beam, with a capacity of 9,472 TEUs.
The timeline may show what such bets cost in patience. The expansion was analyzed for a decade with more than 100 studies before construction began in 2007. It was due to finish in 2014, but strikes and disputes over costs delayed the $5.2bn project. On March 23, 2016, the Panama Canal Authority described the program as 97 percent complete.
What does a bigger canal actually promise?
Perhaps options more than outcomes. The operator said new routes, liner services and other maritime changes are expected to emerge, and its release described the event as one that would change the face of global shipping and international commerce. Those are the builder's expectations. Coverage of the opening also noted the canal could face competition from a new passage in Nicaragua.
Capacity may be less a result than an invitation, and the people who build it probably rarely get to choose who accepts. The useful test of a decade-long project is whether it was designed for the trade that might come, not only the trade already waiting at the gate.
Sources
- Container Vessel COSCO Shipping Panama Departs Greece to Make History in Panama - Panama Canal Authority (ACP), press release, 2016-06-11 (archived copy captured 2016-06-30)
- Panama Canal Conducts Trial Transit Through the Expanded Cocoli Locks - Panama Canal Authority (ACP), press release, 2016-06-20 (archived copy captured 2016-06-29)
- First voyage through expanded Panama canal - BBC News, 2016-06-26 (archived copy captured 2016-06-30)
- Panama Canal Inaugurates Scale Model Training Facility, Announces Expansion Inauguration Date - Panama Canal Authority (ACP), press release, 2016-03-23 (archived copy captured 2016-06-15)
