Friday, August 23, 2013

First four lock gates arrive at Panama Canal (video)

It was a landmark week for the Panama Canal expansion product this week, as the first four gates for the locks arrived this week. The steel gates sailed in from the port of Trieste, Italy on board the semi-submersible vessel STX Sun Rise.

"This is an exciting moment for the Panama Canal - the arrival of the new gates marks a great progress for this engineering project," Panama Canal Administrator Jorge L. Quijano said. "With the expansion, we will further reinforce our position as the maritime and logistics hub of the Americas."

Built by subcontractor Cimolai SpA, the first four gates are 57.6 meters long, 10 meters wide and 30.19 meters high. They weigh an average of 3,100 tons and will be installed in the middle chamber of the new locks in the Atlantic side.

The expanded canal will have a total of 16 rolling gates, eight for each new lock system, to be shipped four at a time from Italy.

The expansion project is currently 62 percent complete, according to the Panama Canal Authority.

To view video of first gates arriving at Panama: youtube.com

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