By Gavin van Marle

(The Loadstar) – Following the inauguration of the Panama Canal’s new lock system on the finish of final month, the waterway is already profitable again market share from Suez within the battle to draw container cargo shifting from Asia to the US east coast, in response to Alphaliner.

The liner transport analyst mentioned Panama had regained the vast majority of teu slots serving the Asia-USEC commerce, as carriers deploy bigger vessels via the brand new locks.

Nearly 60% of all capability on the commerce now flows via the all-water route by way of Panama, in contrast with round 40% originally of the 12 months, rolling again the expansion of Suez Canal site visitors, which had held the bulk share for the reason that starting of 2010.

Alphaliner writes at the moment: “Despite the elevated distances for some China-US east coast port pairs, the Suez route made financial sense, as the size benefits of bigger vessels usually outweighed the disadvantages of the longer steaming distance.

“Now that the old Panama lock restrictions have been lifted, the canal is making a strong comeback, regaining much of the all-water market share that was lost to the Suez Canal.”

It calculated that weekly capability between Asia and the USEC stood at 145,600 teu from the start of this month, representing progress of 1.7% on this time final 12 months. It added that Panama had received again market share regardless of a drop within the variety of weekly providers from 16 final 12 months to 13 now, as common vessel dimension has elevated from 4,600 teu to six,400 teu, representing an progress of 40% in common vessel capability.

In comparability, the typical dimension of US east coast-bound vessel transiting Suez is just below 8,000 teu, and the variety of weekly strings is at the moment eight.

However, with the much-publicised transits of 10,000 teu vessels for the reason that enlargement venture was accomplished, Alphaliner expects bigger ships emigrate to Panama whereas the variety of strings passing via Suez to decrease.

“It is expected to increase further over the coming months, as some carriers have yet to up-size their Panama services with neo-panamax and LCS [large containership] tonnage, while also shifting some of their current trans-Suez services to Panama,” it mentioned.

An extra capability shift could be anticipated as soon as the 2M companions, Maersk and MSC, reconfigure their two Suez providers – TP11/America and TP12/Empire – with the Shanghai and Ningbo calls transferred to Panama providers and South-east Asia calls positioned into one consolidated Suez service.

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