Expanding the Panama Canal

For years, the Panama Canal has been fluctuating in the need for its services. Sometimes there are so many ships that are waiting to get through that there has become a big push to change and accommodate this growth. More recently the Panamanian government has agreed to the Panama Canal expansion project that will show just how flexible the canal can be in accommodating its users.

The Panama Canal was originally built in 1914 and was based on the needs of ships at the time. Since then though, there have been constant studies and talks of how the canal could be expanded. Now almost 100 years later, the container ships have enough demand, especially between the United States and China, and have grown to such great sizes that an expansion project has become eminent.

The new expansion will include a third set of locks for ships to go through which means a third lane of traffic. This will, essentially double the capacity for ships going through the canal allowing more ships at a time which will lesson the time for most ships to get from one ocean to the other. The expansion will also include excavating deeper channels so that the new classes of larger ships will fit through the canal and its locks. Much of the expansion will also incorporate widening the current locks and pathways so that every part can accept these larger ships and higher capacity. While this is a huge undertaking, expanding the canal will be a great achievement for the shipping industry and international logistics community as a whole.