DP World Plans Big for the Panama Canal
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Monday, October 5, 2015
DP World is expanding its container terminal at Port of Caucedo following the expansion of the Panama Canal to accommodate larger container ships, reports ASC.
DP World will increase the capacity of the port to 2.5-million TEU and started work to increase the depth of the quay wall in late August. The depth will be increased from 13.40m to 15.00m and the shipping channel will be deepened to 17.00m.
The new developments are based on the project to expand the Panama Canal, which will allow passage and operations of 13-14,000-teu container ships. These ships currently cannot call at Port of Caucedo due to its draft restriction and quay capacity.
The estimated time of completion of the expansion project is April 2016. The expansion follows a project in 2014 to increase the deoth of the shipping channel to 13.40m and the capacity of the terminal to 1.65-million-tue, but this is not enough to accommodate the new standard of container ships that are expected to use the canal.
With few US east coast and Caribbean ports able to handle the larger ships that will come through the canal, Caribbean deep-sea ports, including Manzanillo, Panama and Cartagena, Colombia, hope to win transshipment traffic.