The Panama Canal has turn out to be so backlogged that the world’s largest operator of chemical tankers has determined to reroute its fleet to the Suez Canal.
London-based Stolt-Nielsen, which has a tanker division with 166 ships, is charging clients extra prices for the longer route, it stated in an electronic mail. A bottleneck on the Panama Canal on account of low water ranges has prompted shippers to divert to Suez, the Cape of Good Hope, and even by the Strait of Magellan off the tip of South America.
“Stolt Tankers has found that the service through the Panama Canal has become increasingly unreliable in recent months,” the corporate stated in an electronic mail. “Our customers need reassurance that their cargo will arrive on time to avoid negatively impacting their supply chains, therefore we have been rerouting our ships via the Suez Canal.”
The Panama Canal Authority, which usually handles about 36 ships a day, introduced on Oct. 30 that it’ll step by step cut back the variety of vessels to 18 a day by Feb. 1 to preserve water heading into the dry season. Panama had the driest October on document on account of a drought brought on by the El Niño climate phenomenon, the authority stated.
It’s unlikely that the canal will be capable to improve visitors till the wet season begins in mid-2024, in response to consultants. Some ships have needed to wait so long as 20 days to get by the canal this yr. Stolt stated different shippers are “taking a similar approach” to take care of the backlog on the canal.
