Leaky Locks May Further Delay $5.3 Billion Panama Canal Widening
- Slowing GDP growth in China, U.S. not hurting ship traffic
- Canal authority awaiting report within 3 weeks on timeline
The Cocoli lockgates are tested during the Panama Canal expansion on July 3, 2015.
Photographer: Ed Grimaldo/AFP via Getty ImagesThe April opening of Panama’s $5.3 billion expanded canal, originally set for 2014, could be delayed further depending on repairs to leaks discovered in the new locks during testing as the waterway ends a year of record shipments, administrator Jorge Quijano said.
The contractor building the new locks is expected to file a report within the next three weeks on the repair time line and any delay in the opening “shouldn’t be much if there is one,” Quijano said in a phone interview on Thursday. Shipments through the canal could rise to 360 million tons in 2017, the first full year of the expanded canal’s operation, after reaching a record 340.8 million tons in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, he said.