On the 8th of October, the LNG carrier Golar Penguin loaded a cargo for RWE at the Freeport LNG terminal in Texas. Five days later, on October 13, the vessel was sitting just north of Panama. But then, the ship abruptly changed direction on the 14th and headed towards the Cape of Good Hope to deliver to the Far East. The reason for the diversion was that the vessel did not have a passage booked in the new locks of the Panama Canal and would have had to wait approximately nine days for its turn to transit, before heading across the Pacific Ocean to Asia. Since then, as queues of LNGCs for Panama Canal transits, both northbound (ballast) and southbound (laden) have developed, more ships have opted for the longer route. In today’s blog, we look at the delays that have developed surrounding the Panama Canal and the implications that its operations hold for global LNG trade.
Bottleneck Blues – Traffic at the Panama Canal and Its Impacts on LNG Economics
