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Long term maybe, but it'll take years for the rest of the logistics network to fully accommodate the new capacity and do things like building more ships or real
by AlotOfReading 3y ago
Long term maybe, but it'll take years for the rest of the logistics network to fully accommodate the new capacity and do things like building more ships or reallocating routes. In the meantime the new ports would probably undercut Panama fees to attract traffic that would otherwise go via the canal.
- bluGill 3y agoNot really as the canal is overfull so anyone in shipping has incentive to see if they can make this work for some shipments now.
- Arrath 3y agoYeah we recently had a load pay something like $1.5m to jump up the queue to transit the canal. Not even a "guaranteed transit by X" but just jumping up the line! Which at the time was something like a month and a half long, IIRC. Being a specialized load (read, unusual cargo, not containerized, on a barge) I doubt transloading to rail and back onto a ship on the other side would have been practical in our case but for other cargoes? It might be an attractive alternative.
- kortilla 3y agoWhy not go around if the queue is a month and a half long?
- crowcroft 3y agoI'm not an expert, but my understanding in large freight is that Cost >>> Time. Going around probably costs a lot more in fuel etc would be my guess.
- lokar 3y agoAnd some freight (LNG) is consumed by waiting or going around (the ship burns it to generate power to cool the LNG)!
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y agoIt would have to burn that anyways.
- bobthepanda 3y agoCape Horn is quite hazardous, so it's not a journey to prefer anyways.
- Gibbon1 3y agoFriend went through the canal and had to sit for a few days with a bunch of other ships. That's something operators hate. Because any time spent waiting is lost opportunity. I'm assuming being able to punt and offload and swap cargo would be a welcome alternative for operators. Maybe you spend a day to offload and load new cargo but that would beat waiting two days for a slot to open up at the panama canal.