A Chinese container ship, the Cosco Shipping Panama , was the first to engage in it this Sunday. The Panama Canal, now over a hundred years, has offered a second life after nine years of titanic work to enlarge and boost its sea trade capacity.
The Chinese container ship Cosco Shipping Panama engages the expanded channel for a maiden voyage, June 26, 2016
afp.com/JOHAN ORDONEZ
Built by the French and the Americans and opened in 1914, it unveiled on Sunday a new expanded version of . infrastructure
The Chinese container ship COSCO inaugurated the Panama Canal widened Sunday.
REUTERS / Carlos Jasso
Long 80 kilometers, with each end-Pacific and Atlantic-two giant sets of locks, the new channel is added to that which handles aujourd ‘hui 5% of the entire global maritime trade.
Aerial view of the entire Atlantic side locks (Gatun) in May 2015. A symmetrical set exists Pacific side (Miraflores).
REUTERS / Carlos Jasso
Three times more goods by ship
S ‘thus adapting to the explosion of traffic, it should allow the larger ships passage, to a width of 49 meters, a length of 366 meters and above carrying 14 000 containers, triple its current capacity.
the expansion corresponds to that of container for several decades: ship classes increasingly large that no longer pass through the existing channel (Panamax classes, for “maximum Panama”) yet become popular among shipowners
To the east of the Panama Canal on 11 May, sailing carriers containers of all sizes.
REUTERS / Carlos Jasso
size difference whose importance is illustrated infographic below by the American company Stratfor. The new vessels, called Post-Panamax, now account for 45% of freight, a figure that could reach 60% by 2030.
Before-after work. (Republished with permission of Stratfor)
C ‘ is the challenge of titanic work. “Some 97 to 98% of the container fleet currently circulating can [now] go into the new locks of the canal, and with them we’ll do good business,” said administrator Jorge Quijano.
A non-standard construction of nine
the Panamanian government hopes to triple the billion dollars in annual revenue that brings him infrastructure, after this mammoth construction began in 2007.
The construction site and the new channel development, in August 2014, Pacific side.
REUTERS / Rafael Ibarra
It took nine years for the installation of new sets of locks (six rooms in total), widening access roads and deepening the canal bed. The new system of 16 sliding doors, closing and opening the access to each lock chamber was manufactured in Italy: it has consumed enough steel to build 20 Eiffel Towers. Each door weighs between 2100 and 4200 tonnes to over 57 meters high.
One of the doors used for the locks during transport to the facility in April 2015.
REUTERS / Rafael Ibarra
the complex project, which was to be inaugurated for the centenary in 2014, has accumulated twenty months late, many social conflicts and additional costs . 200 million compared to the initial budget of 5.25 billion
” No channel “was the poor demonstrators in 2014 in Nicaragua, concerned about the environmental impact.
REUTERS / Oswaldo Rivas
Worried about the overruns, the consortium responsible for the work (United Group for the Canal, GUPC) did not hesitate to freeze site in 2014 in order to claim a supplementary budget. He counts the Spanish group Sacyr, Italian Salini Impregilio, Belgian Jan de Nul and Panama’s Constructora Urbana.
The administrator of the Panama Canal, Jorge Quijano.
REUTERS / Carlos Jasso
in addition to Panama and rights of way, the impact is significant finance for many countries.
What changes for World trade
the expanded canal should particularly strong boost trade between the United States and Asia, where saving time is the highest, while rounding up customers at its main competitor, the Suez canal in Egypt. this Sunday it is just a Chinese ship, the Cosco Shipping Panama designated lots, which will pass through the first 80 kilometers of this new release channel.
Several ports here Miami, have already adapted their structures for post-Panamax. REUTERS / Carlo Allegri 
the American consumer benefit in fine of the work, paying “cheaper to import products from China and its neighbors “, according to the Panamanian expert Carlos Guevara-Mann of the University of the State of Florida. Even global emissions should fall according to industry experts, the transportation of goods that can be made in larger ships (so fewer).
The workers applauding the first pass test of a ship, on 9 June.
REUTERS / Carlos Jasso
the United States is also the main channel of the current client, with 162 million tons shipped in the last fiscal year, followed by China ( 48), Chile (29) and Japan (22). estimates see 600 million tons of annual cargo transit there in ten years, twice more than at present.
with this ceremony on Sunday, Panama wants to finally show its best after extensive scandal “Panama Papers”. an investigation that revealed early April, the widespread use of offshore companies via a law firm of this country, Mossack Fonseca, allowing investments in secrecy jurisdictions with low taxation. Obviously nothing to sink the international ambitions of the small country in the grand canal.
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