Panama Canal announces new toll structure and calls public hearings

A public hearing will take place on 27 February, written comments must be received by the deadline of 9 February at 1615 hrs, local time.

The adjustments -for all market segments, except for the new Intra Maritime Cluster Segment- are scheduled to begin in April of 2016.

 “The proposal, in its current form, safeguards the competitiveness of the waterway, charges a fair price for the value of the route and facilitates the Canal´s goal of providing impeccable service to the global shipping and maritime community,” said ACP Administrator Jorge Quijano.

The proposed restructuring calls for each segment to be priced based upon different units of measurement.  For instance, containers will be measured and priced on per teu, dry bulkers will be based on deadweight tonnage capacity and metric tonnes of cargo, passenger vessels will be based on berths, LNG will be based on cubic metre and tankers will be measured and priced on Panama Canal tonnes and metric tonnes.

The new structure will apply to the existing Canal as well as the new lane of traffic when the expansion project begins operation in 2016. The last tolls modification was put into effect in 2012-2013 for dry bulk vessels, tankers, chemical carriers, gas carriers, vehicle carrier/ro-ro, general cargo and other vessel types segments. Container, reefer and passenger tolls have remained unchanged since 2011.  Please refer to the ACP’s website for details: http://www.pancanal.com/