Thursday, August 9, 2012

Top Story

Container, breakbulk shipping spared Panama Canal toll hike in October

The container-and breakbulk-shipping sectors were spared, for now, from newly restructured toll pricing that goes up in October at the Panama Canal.

The highly anticipated completion of the over $5 billion project to widen the Canal for larger commercial ocean-going vessels is still at least a few years away, and the waterway's authority increased the number of shipping segments from eight to ten that will have to pay the piper.

"The new structure offers price stability to the Panama Canal clients during the next two years, while the approved tolls remain below the value it offers as a safe, reliable and efficient route," said Panama Canal Authority Administrator and CEO Alberto Alemán Zubieta in a statement.

The tanker sector has been broken into three segments, while ro-ro vessels have been rolled into into the vehicle carrier segment, the ACP announced.

The Canal's new market segmentation structure includes the following breakdown: full container, reefer, dry bulk, passenger, vehicle carrier and ro-ro, tanker, chemical tanker, LPG, general cargo and "others."

The containerized and breakbulk shipping sectors were to have been included in the ACP's original toll hike proposal that was subsequently postponed October 2012 and October 2013, respectively, but 
were spared from the higher charges for the time being.

"The [container, breakbulk segments] will not be adjusted at this time, nor will the price per TEU for containers carried onboard a vessel," the ACP's statement said.

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