By Nick Lung.    Photo：Victor Puente

Since this summer, the ongoing dry season in the Panama Canal has limited the canal’s capacity. From ship drafts to the number of passages per day, the canal authority has announced various restrictions. Just recently, the canal authority made the decision to extend these restrictions into next year, so it looks like this problem is here to stay.

Various media have reported a lot about the impact of the Panama Canal's low water on shipping, but the information is very confusing. Even the authoritative information regularly released by the canal authority does not make the situation clear at a glance. Is my container a NeoPanamax class ship or a Super, Regular? This is too complicated. If you just look at the media headlines, the situation is already very bad: at most, there were 160 ships waiting to berth. So many ships waiting to cross the canal remind everyone of the "grand occasion" of more than 100 ships waiting for berths in Los Angeles in 2021. Will ships going to the East Bay of the United States also have to stage the tragic scene of that year? Most ships going to the East United States and the Gulf of Mexico pass through the Panama Canal, especially ships departing from Northeast Asia because it is the closest. If there is serious congestion in the Panama Canal, it will seriously affect shipping schedules in the East US and Gulf of Mexico, and cargo owners are actively considering alternative options.

In the past two years during the epidemic, it was difficult to find space in the Midwestern United States. Some operators introduced the Transload method, which transports containers to the West Coast of the United States, unloads them directly at the port, and transfers them to 53-foot trucks dedicated to internal roads in the United States. At the destination, the cost is similar to that of the shipping company, but the time is much faster, and many options have been added. However, now the sea freight has returned to the price before the epidemic. This practice will now increase the customer's payment cost, so the customer must Considering cost and time, should we pay more for the order? Or should we spend more time to save costs, or even the order may be cancelled? This is a question worth pondering.

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