Happy Tuesday!
Did anyone
happen to read gCaptain Daily Newsletter on February 22, 2024, their
article titled, “Facing a Water Crisis, Panama Canal Pledges $8.5 Billion
Towards Climate Resilience”? The article
speaks in regard to the Panama Canal Authority’s announcement in which they
will up their capital investment budget to $8.5 billion dollars over the next
five years, and the projects will be leaning to sustainability and a net-zero
goal by 2050 for decarbonization. Panama
has been in a drought which has affected the Panama Canal. The canal gets its water from Gatun’s reservoir
which has been in a drought for 2023 and it has been the driest October on
record for the region. The reservoir has
been three-million cubic meters (792,516,157 US liquid gallons) low, and it hasn’t
been replenished by the normal rainfall.
The Panama Canal has reduced the number of ships from the normal 36 to
24 transits daily in February. They
were able to keep the number of transits daily by they had good rainfall in November
and December, and they started water-reduction protocols.
The capital
investment budget for the Panama Canal will be broken down into about $3.5
billion going to infrastructure and equipment which the investment will be
towards them going green and investing in clean energy like solar panels and buying
EV’s and hybrid tugs. Then an additional
$2 billion will be invested in renewable or eco-friendly projects and another $2
billion will be invested in a better water management system. The last billion will be used in upgrades of
their digital transformation and reduced emission focused projects for the
canal like the rest of the world they will be reducing the greenhouse gas
emissions and aiming for net-zero by 2050.
The Panama
Canal Authority will have several publications this year which include a
greenhouse gas emissions inventory, a climate risk assessment with their Science
Based Targets initiative (SBTi) with their target goals and timeline for the
2050 goal. They have added a new
position as of January at the Panama Canal Authority called Chief Sustainability
Officer, and Deputy Administrator IIya Espino de Marotta was appointed to the
position. The Chief Sustainability
Officer position has the responsibility to finding the solutions for climate
change and what that means to the canal.
The Panama
Canal’s generous capital budget was a promising site for the marine industry,
and their dedication to finding a way to keep the important waterway open. This good news with the end to El Niño coming
in a couple months and La Niña bringing the promise of more rainfall to the
region 2024 may end up being a good year after all. If you would like to read more of gCaptain’s
article, please click the link: Facing a Water Crisis, Panama Canal Pledges $8.5 Billion Towards Climate Resilience (gcaptain.com).
Check out this
link, if you would like to know more about the Panama Canal, Panama Canal - Wikipedia.
If you would
like help in looking into how to update your terminal and docks, contact us via
email in the blog and check out our ESC's website for contact
information!
We hope you have a wonderful evening, and a great rest of
your week!
**Disclaimer: You may be charged a fee to read the gCaptain’s
article. **