When containers can no longer navigate, they take the train. At least those of the shipping company Maersk. For several weeks now, the Danish carrier has had to deal with an almost dry Panama Canal. In response, Maersk said in a statement on Thursday that it had "made the decision to use the Panama Canal Railway to protect the supply chains of [its] customers."
The route between Oceania and the cities of the eastern United States will now be divided into three parts. The first will go from Australia or New Zealand to Balboa, a commercial port in southern Panama. The containers will be transferred to trains and then crossed the country on the rails before being loaded at the Caribbean port of Colon. Then it's off to the United States, to the cities of Philadelphia and Charleston. As long as the channel does not return to its usual level, this sleight of hand will take place twice a week, the company detailed in a notice to its customers.
Fed by several lakes, the 80-kilometer canal, which has connected the Atlantic Ocean to its big brother in the Pacific since 1913, is facing a historic drought. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) is particularly worried about the level of Gatun Lake, the canal's main reservoir, which is abnormally low at this time of year. However, for each boat, it is necessary to discharge nearly 200 million litres of fresh water, which the canal usually obtains from a watershed formed by the lakes.
Influence of El Niño
Without being able to guarantee sufficient water depth for heavy cargo ships, the ACP has greatly reduced the number of crossings through the canal, reducing it from 40 to 24 boats per day. "We understand that our customers, like us, need to adapt their operations due to the impacts of global climate variations and the current water shortage in the Panama Canal," the authority said in response to the measures taken by Maersk.
Recent weather forecasts do not point to any improvement. Especially since the drought in Panama depends on El Niño, a weather phenomenon that originates in the Pacific and causes extreme weather episodes on the American continent for several months.
Read alsoMaritime transport: shipowners do well in the Suez Canal crisis
New drinking water reservoirs in the pipeline
To address these episodes, which could occur more and more frequently, the Panamanian government is considering long-term solutions. In addition to the railway line, which was renovated at the beginning of the 21st century, the ACP is considering the construction of new drinking water reservoirs to supply the crossing. The project under consideration would be built on the Indio River, west of the canal. Its water would be transported through a tunnel about eight kilometres long to Gatun Lake. Depending on the amount of rainfall, the reservoir could fill up in three months at best, or in two and a half years if the drought persists, the canal's administrator, Ricaurte Vásquez, warned in September. Another project is under consideration to extract water from Lake Bayano, located east of the canal.
In the meantime, cargo ships that want to use the canal have to deal with increasingly long delays. On Monday, January 15, the average waiting time was more than 16 days to travel from south to north, compared to just over seven days in December.