Both Suntracs and Capac agreed upon a wage adjustment of 35.87% over four years, or 9% per year.
As a result works on the Panama Canal expansion resumed onThursday morning gradually on the Atlantic and Pacific sites, said Ilya Marotta, Panama Canal Authority (ACP) executive vice president for engineering and programme mamagement.
Panama Canal officials claim that the strike cost the ACP $1m per day or a total of $15m since the strike lasted 15 days.
“This is lost profits from a late commencement of post-panamax transit operations on account of the expansion works delays resulting from this strike and additional costs to provide ACP supervision of the contractor’s work which includes ACP consultants,” ACP Administrator Jorge Quijano told Seatrade Global.
“This is our estimate per day if GUPC [Grupo Unidos por el Canal, the consortium that builds the third set of locks] indeed exceeds the 31 December 2015 target day to complete and have the locks operational. GUPC has not given us yet any new date and we do not know if they will, but they did send us a letter advising ACP of the intent to claim for time and costs,” added Quijano.
“Actually 31 December 2015 is still a valid deadline for locks operational completion. We will see what GUPC will claim and is able to provide supporting evidence,” he said.
Even though work was stopped by a national construction workers strike in Panama, it has not affected the gate programme carried out by the Gate Fabricator Cimolai, SPA. “In this regard the two gates of the second shipment are already in Trieste and the first has already been loaded on the STX Sunrise. At this rate it may be possible to have that shipment leave Trieste for Panama during this month and could be in Panama in late June or early July,” explains Quijano.
“That is ahead of the accorded dates in the MOU with GUPC. Dredging work that is being performed by ACP has continued uninterrupted during the two weeks of strike,” said Quijano.
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