Panama Canal may lose 50% of Asia - USEC boxship transitsPanama Canal may lose 50% of Asia - USEC boxship transits

Over the last five years the percentage of Asia to US East Coast services transiting the Panama Canal has dropped from about 90% to 60% with lines opting to sail via the Suez Canal instead. Maersk Line is in the process of amalgamating its two services from Asia to the US East Coast utilising 4,500 teu panamax vessels into a single service via the Suez Canal deploying 8,000 teu to 9,000 teu vessels. “So it’s basically a doubling of the size of the ships and we can do that today via the Suez Canal but not by the Panama Canal,” Skou told reporters in Singapore on Monday.

As lines deploy mega-boxship newbuildings of 13,000 – 18,000 teu on the Asia – Europe trade existing 7,000 – 9,000 teu vessels on the trade are being cascaded into other lanes. “Many of those ships in our view will go into serving Asia to US East Coast via Suez Canal,” he said.

Currently there are 14 strings transiting the Panama Canal to the US East Coast utilising 140 panamax vessels. While it would not make sense for all these services to be replaced by larger vessels going via the Suez Canal as many as half the could be. “You could still easily absorb 30 – 40 large ships (7,000 – 9,000 teu) off the Asia – Europe trade in this Suez Canal to US EC service and that would effectively take care of the cascading problem,” Skou said.

Whether services would return to transiting via the Panama Canal once its expansion is completed in 2015 would be determined by pricing policy Skou said. He noted that the cost of panamax containership transiting the Panama Canal had increased from $150,000 to $450,000 per transit over the last five years.