A flexibility to respond to new trades and logistic challenges will be encouraged by the expansion of the Panama Canal, its administrator said in Paris this week. Speaking at a special BIMCO 39 session, in which the commercial opportunities from “key corridors in shipping” were considered, Mr Jorge L. Quijano said that the current expansion of the 100 year old waterway will enable it to double its capacity and also to challenge for new trade segments.
LNG, dry bulk cargoes and liquid bulks will all be cargoes, along with containers, which the next generation of “neo-Panamaxes” will be carrying in increasing quantities through the canal, when its new lock system is opened to larger ships in 2015.
The administrator suggested that a strong surge in North-South trade through the canal is also anticipated following the expansion, as trades hitherto constrained by capacity found it possible to ship through the bigger locks. The canal, said Mr Quijano, “would be the first route of choice”, with a whole range of new business using the expanded waterway, which he said would be able to accommodate 13,200 teu containerships within the first three years of its opening.
BIMCO 39 members also heard of new shipping opportunities using the Northern Sea Route between Europe and the Far East, made possible by a combination of retreating Arctic ice and technical advances. Mr Roman Arbuzov of FSUE Rosatomflot suggested that the “short cut” offered by new routes across the North of Russia provided exciting possibilities.
Changes in Russian legislation, which made it possible to operate non-ice-strengthened ships through the route in the summer months, said Mr Arbuzov, encouraged more seasonal sailings which would save 3000 miles and ten days on a passage between Europe and the Far East. More ships were taking advantage of the route each year, with 46 vessels using it last year and further growth anticipated for 2013.
Mr Arbuzov said that LNG, iron ore, crude oil and coal might be expected to become staple cargoes through the route, which was offering competitive rates, new icebreakers under construction and, depending on the degree of ice strengthening, extended seasons.
The meeting, held for younger BIMCO member executives on the occasion of the organisation’s Annual General Meeting in Paris also heard Francis Vallat, French shipowner and President of the Cluster Maritime Francais, point to the long term prospects for the shipping sector, as it integrated with other users of the sea. Maritime activities of all kinds, he suggested, would form a clear and permanent link between sustainable development and the wider economy.
The oceans, said Mr Vallat were fragile, traditional concepts of “freedom of the seas” were entering a new era and there was a need to balance the requirement for resources and the protection of the marine environment.
Source: BIMCO
