Tag Archives: expansion project

Authority assures that Panama Canal widening will be completed

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By Tom Stieghorst

The Panama Canal Authority has reaffirmed its intent to finish its expansion project by mid-2015, despite a payment dispute with contractors.

A consortium led by Spanish construction company Sacyr threatened last week to suspend work on Jan. 20 if the Panama Canal Authority did not pay for $1.6 billion in cost overruns.

In a statement, the authority said its contract includes guarantees that will allow the completion of the new locks, even if it needs to step in to assume control of the project.

The authority stressed that the dispute relates only to the expansion and is not affecting current operations.

The $5.25 billion widening project will allow for longer, deeper ships to pass through the canal, which was built in 1914. The project is 72% done, the authority said.

According to Agence France-Presse, the Spanish government has begun mediating the dispute, and the Spanish minister of public works flew to Panama on Monday to talk to both sides.

Grupo Unidos por el Canal blames the cost overrun on faulty geological studies done by the authority.

In its statement, the authority said the arguments raised by Grupo “lack legal basis, are not clear and do not give any reasons for the contractor to suspend the work.”

Panama expansion delays hurting cruise lines

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Delays to the expansion project underway at the Panama Canal will affect the itineraries of cruise lines that had intended to send their larger ships along the iconic waterway this year.

The canal is currently undergoing a multi-billion dollar widening some 100 years after it was first opened, which will see it able to hold ships larger than the existing locks allow for.

Currently, only vessels measuring approximately 290 metres or less in length and up to 32 metres in width can traverse the canal.

However, the consortium undertaking the work to widen the waterway – which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans – has threatened to down tools if authorities do not compensate it for the significant cost overruns on the project, amounting to $1.6 billion (£975 million).

As a result, Cruise Critic reports that larger ships could be forced to wait until April 2015 or later before they are able to pass through the Panama Canal.

The expansion plans would see ships measuring approximately 425 metres in length, 55 metres in width and 18 metres in depth capable of traversing the canal.

That should be enough to accommodate the current largest cruise ships in the world, Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas.