To bypass the Panama Canal dry, Maersk containers take the train

When the containers can no longer sail, they take the train. Those of the shipping company Maersk at least. For several weeks, the Danish carrier has had to deal with an almost dry Panama Canal. In response, Maersk declared in a press release published on Thursday that it had “made the decision to use the Panama Canal Railway to protect the supply chains of [its] customers”.

The route between Oceania and cities in the eastern United States will now be divided into three parts. The first will go from Australia or New Zealand to Balboa, a commercial port in southern Panama. The containers will be transferred to trains and then cross the country on rails before being loaded in Colon, a Caribbean port. Then head to the United States, towards the cities of Philadelphia and Charleston. As long as the canal does not return to its usual level, this trick will take place twice a week, the company detailed in a notice for its customers.

Fed by several lakes, the 80-kilometer canal, which has linked the Atlantic Ocean to its big brother in the Pacific since 1913, is facing a historic drought. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) is particularly concerned about the level of Gatún Lake, the canal's main reservoir, which is abnormally low this season. However, for each boat, it is necessary to discharge nearly 200 million liters of fresh water, which the canal usually obtains from a hydrographic basin formed by lakes.

Without being able to guarantee sufficient water height for heavy cargo ships, the ACP has significantly reduced the number of passages on the canal, lowering it from 40 to 24 boats per day. “We understand that our customers, like us, must adapt their operations due to the impacts of global climate variations and the current water shortage in the Panama Canal,” the authority said in response to the measures taken by Maersk.

Recent weather forecasts do not suggest any improvement. Especially since the drought in Panama depends on El Niño, a meteorological phenomenon which originates in the Pacific and which causes extreme climatic episodes on the American continent for several months.

To remedy these episodes which could occur more and more frequently, the Panamanian government is considering long-term solutions. In addition to the railway line, renovated at the beginning of the 21st century, the ACP is considering building new drinking water reservoirs to supply the passage. The project under study would be built on the Indio River, west of the canal. Its water would be transported through a tunnel of approximately eight kilometers to Lake Gatún. Depending on the abundance of rain, the reservoir could fill in three months, at best, or in two and a half years if the drought continues, warned the canal administrator, Ricaurte Vásquez, in September. Another project is under study to extract water from Bayano Lake, located east of the canal.

In the meantime, cargo ships that want to use the canal must face increasing delays. This Monday, January 15, the average waiting time was more than 16 days to travel from south to north, compared to just over seven days in December.