The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) has announced new navigation restrictions.
These restrictions are coping decisions made due to falling water levels.
Shipping companies, including ZIM, have been affected to varying degrees due to restrictions on the canal's shipping lane, and ZIM's executive vice president and chief financial officer, X**ier Destriau, said the restrictions have prevented the company from operating as planned.
To protect flight reliability, ZIM has added two vessels to the Asia-US East Coast route, increasing the number of vessels from 10 to 12. However, ZIM has not so far imposed additional charges on the Panama Canal, but some competitors have decided to pass the surcharge. For example, the CMA CGM will impose a Panama Adjustment Fee (PAF) of $150 per TEU effective January 1, 2024, while the MSC will announce a PAF of $297 per TEU for its Asia to US East Coast US Gulf of Mexico and Asia Caribbean services through the Canal from December 15.
Hapag-Lloyd and Cosco became the latest shipping companies to impose surcharges on the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal Surcharge (PCC) of $130 per TEU will be imposed on Hapag-Lloyd starting Jan. 1, while the Panama Canal Low Water Surcharge (PLW) of $255 planned by COSCO is nearly double that of Hapag-Lloyd but less than the $297 scheduled by MSC on Dec. 15.
Due to the ongoing effects of severe drought, the maximum vessel draft of the canal has been reduced from 149 meters to 134 meters, the number of ships passing through per day has also been reduced from 34-38 to 24 in design capacity, and is expected to be further reduced to 22 on Friday and again to 18 by February.
At the same time, the congestion of the canal is increasing every day.
According to the shipping database EESEA, there are currently 20 container ships waiting to transit, of which 9 are at the entrance to the Pacific Ocean and 11 are in the Atlantic.
Shipping lines have responded to this difficulty in a variety of ways, with one popular approach being to unload additional cargo at surrounding ports such as Balboa, Cristobal or Manzanillo before crossing the border to successfully cope with load constraints and reschedule some capacity.