Trans RINA, Vol 153, Part A4, Intl J Maritime Eng, Oct-Dec 2011


The expansion of the Canal is based on the requirements of the container trades and the consequent effect on container


vessel


[2,3,4,5,6,7]. potential


design has been well


Little has been written to date about the effects on design in other fleet


researched sectors,


however. This paper considers the wider implications of the relaxation of the Panamax beam constraint for ship designers. This is not a purely technical issue and must take account of factors such as market demand for larger ships and other constraints, in particular in the capability of supporting infrastructure to handle larger dimensions. The case of the ubiquitous Panamax dry bulk carrier is used to illustrate the issues that will be faced in considering expansion of vessel size in response to the relaxation of the constraint.


2. DRY BULK SHIPPING THROUGH THE CANAL


Dry bulk carriers rank second in importance to container ships in terms of number of transits through the Canal but lead in terms of tonnage of cargo, as described in Table 1.


Market Segment


Number of


Container 3,031 Dry Bulk


Refrigerated 1,718 Tankers 2,233 General Cargo


Vehicle carriers 607 Others


834 893


Passengers 225 Total 12,591


Transits 3,050


Cargo


(thousand long tons) 50,305 86,890 4,811


44,941 6,948 2,664 8,257 0


204,816 Tolls


(thousand Balboa1) 763,988 250,692 61,722


171,152 31,124


118,770 42,378 40,727


1,480,554 Table 1: Summary of Canal traffic by segment in 2010[8]


It is interesting to note that whilst dry bulk trades make up by far the largest sector in terms of tonnage (42% in 2010) the revenue


received by the Panama


Number of laden transits Number of ballast transits Total transits


Total Cargo (thousand long tons)


South- bound 1,410 11


1,421 Canal


Authority is dominated by container shipping, hence the focus of the expansion on the container sector.


North- bound 865 748


1,613 58,645 27,760 Table 2: Summary of dry bulk Canal traffic in 2010 [8]


Whilst the total number of dry bulk carrier transits is roughly equal in both directions about 70% of dry bulk cargoes move in the Southerly direction, that is from the


1 The Balboa is tied to the US Dollar at an exchange rate of 1.00.


A-216 3. PANAMAX The complex set of regulations applying to ships


transiting the Canal are set out in the Panama Canal Authority’s notice to shipping generally referred to as the “Vessel Requirements” [9]. Inter alia the


Vessel


Requirements set out the limiting dimensions and the 2010 revision of the document for the first time refers to the limitations that will apply following expansion. The limits are summarised in Table 5.


The existing locks were specified in feet, being the reason for the unusually precise limiting dimensions. New Panamax dimensions are specified in meters, giving a more rounded constraint for metric designers. The new limiting lock internal dimensions are planned to be 427m x 55m x 18.3m. The reason for the increased beam clearance (6m in the new locks compared to 1.2m in the existing locks) is that ships will be taken through the new locks under the control of tugs.


In the existing locks


vessels are pulled through by locomotive engines on rails (known as “mules”), enabling vessels to be squeezed tightly between the walls.


©2011: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects


Atlantic to the Pacific, with ballast voyages being mainly on North-bound routes. Dry bulk carrier traffic in 2010 is summarised in Table 2.


The predominance of South-bound traffic is due to the importance of Grain cargoes, for which the main flow is from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The main dry bulk flows are summarised by commodity and direction in Table 3.


Coal and Coke Grains


South- bound 8,072


Fertilizers 4,463 Ores


37,943 3,051


North- bound 2,392 2,464 1,987 3,380


Table 3: Summary of dry bulk cargoes transiting the Canal in 2010 (thousand Long Tons) [8]


There are a wide range of dry bulk routes served by the Canal but the following


(Table 4) are the most


significant, showing more than 1 million long tons transiting in 2010.


N-bound


Grain: W. Coast Canada to E. Coast USA Ore (principally copper): W. Coast South America to Europe Coal: W. Coast Canada to Europe


S-bound


Grain: E. Coast USA to W. Coast South/Central America Grain: E. Coast USA to Asia Coal: E. Coast South America to W. Coast South America Ore (principally Iron): E. Coast South America to Asia


Table4: Largest (>1m long tons) dry bulk trade routes through the Canal in 2010 [8]


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