In International Shipping News 27/06/2016
The Chinese ship Cosco Shipping Panama, which on Sunday will inaugurate the Panama Canal expansion, will pay a toll of close to $586,000 for sailing through the new set of locks, sources at the interoceanic waterway told EFE on Saturday.
The ship, which arrived Saturday to the Central American country from Greece and whose final destination is South Korea, measures 48.25 meters (158 feet) abeam and 299.98 meters (984 feet) long, and has a capacity for transporting 9,400 containers.
The Panama Canal Authority, or ACP, will check the ship’s cargo Saturday afternoon to confirm the exact number of containers it is carrying and so be able to adjust the toll should that be necessary, the same sources said.
Cosco Shipping Panama belongs to the like-named Chinese shipping company, one of the largest in the world with 800 merchant ships and an annual cargo capacity of 400 million tons, according to its Web site.
The vice presidents of Argentina, Gabriela Michetti, and of El Salvador, Oscar Ortiz, arrived Saturday in Panama to attend the inauguration on Sunday, as did Paraguayan Foreign Minister Eladio Loizaga and the head of the Japanese delegation, lawmaker Seishiro Eto.
Construction of the canal expansion began in the year 2007 with an initial budget of $5.25 billion.
The main project within the expansion was the construction of the third set of locks, a contract worth $3.12 billion that was awarded to the international GUPC consortium led by Spain’s Sacyr and including Salini Impregilo of Italy, Jan de Nul of Belgium and Panama’s CUSA, and which now demands close to $3.5 billion in cost overruns
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Source: EFE
Source: EFE
