El Niño prevents rain and dries the Panama Canal

Hundreds of merchant ships had to endure up to nineteen days of waiting this August to cross the Panama Canal. Therefore, just a few days less than it takes to go around the entire South American continent, and that is the great advantage of the waterway that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean in just 80 kilometers of travel. It accounts for 6% of world trade and is Panama's main asset, especially since it regained sovereignty over both the Canal and the area on its two banks in 1999, a 16-kilometer-wide strip, which the Americans managed as a paradise viceroyalty since they took over all management and exploitation rights after helping Panama split from Colombia in 1903. It is convenient to read about it the magnificent book by the Asturian Zoilo G. Martínez de Vega “The Wars of General Omar Torrijos" (Ed. Planeta), to know the ins and outs and the enormous difficulties of Panamanians to recover their territorial unity and the unification of a country literally split in two.

The Canal contributes more than 3,000 million dollars annually for the tariffs paid by the ships that pass through it, mainly American, Japanese and Chinese. But, this 2023 and a good part of 2024 are showing especially bad luck with this source of wealth and commercial normalcy. The meteorological phenomenon known as El Niño has made much of the intense tropical rains enjoyed by the Panamanian jungle disappear. This contribution is all the more important since it is fundamental for the operation of the locks, which allow to bridge unevenness of up to 26 meters on the journey between the two mouths of the Canal. The filling with fresh water required by each lock with each ship is 200 million liters, water that is not recovered because it ends up in the sea.

In view of the overcrowding of ships to cross the Canal, the Canal Administration has decided to restrict circulation for at least a year while implementing engineering solutions that can reverse the problem. In addition to the Gatún and Alhajuela lakes, which are supplied with fresh rainwater, the construction of two other reservoirs has been undertaken, since the former are also to supply drinking water for agricultural and human consumption to the more than four million Panamanians, along with the growing needs of an overflowing residential tourism.

The restrictions will affect not only the number of ships, a maximum of 32 instead of the usual 40 per day, but also their draft, which will be a maximum of 44 feet (13.4 meters), which will logically translate into less cargo and ultimately in fewer tariffs for the Panamanian administration. With these conditions, the company does not believe that even 500 million tons of cargo transported will be reached in 2024, which will mean at best 200 million dollars less in revenue.

Panama is trying to speed up the process of finding a solution to alleviate an unprecedented drought, at least in terms of its dramatic intensity, especially since it is also having to fight against the spread of hoaxes that tarnish its image. Just this week, the Panamanian president, Laurentino Cortizo, had to come forward and deny his Colombian colleague, Gustavo Petro, who had declared “to believe that the Panama Canal had been closed.”

The urgency of finding solutions to a problem that Cortizo considers timely has consequently delayed the new Canal expansion project, so that even larger merchants could transit through it. El Niño and its relentless drought are to blame.