During 2023 and in this early beginning of 2024, an element that has certainly negatively impacted global maritime traffic is related to the difficulties of transit through the two main channels, namely the Suez and Panama canals.
As for the former, as widely described in previous articles, terrorist attacks in the Red Sea have already resulted in a 42% reduction in transits (with a 66% contraction for the passage of container ships).
However, the focus of this article is on the Panama Canal, which is experiencing an extremely negative situation due to the ongoing drought in that area.
The drought has indeed caused a dramatic drop in canal transits starting from May 2023, with the biggest declines occurring in November, when the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) significantly reduced booking slots. Not even the heavy rains between December and January improved the situation: in fact, despite an increase in daily booking slots (about a 10% increase), the number of transits continued to decrease, resulting in a further reduction of approximately 6% between December and January.
The above situation can also be observed from the graph, which shows how the trend of daily transits experienced a first sharp contraction in May 2023 for Panamax locks (a more gradual contraction) and a second reduction in November 2023 for NeoPanamax locks (more sudden and rapid).
The bottlenecks at the Panama Canal, combined with tensions in the Red Sea, as mentioned, are causing significant problems for maritime traffic. In particular, this scenario (unprecedented in history) as reported by the UNCTAD will have serious repercussions in terms of economic and environmental costs, with a high impact on the operating costs that shipowners will have to face. These costs, as one would expect, will again be passed on to end consumers, resulting in a contraction in purchases of “non-essential” goods and a possible resurgence of inflation (which seems to never disappear).
