First Contract Awarded For Panama Canal Expansion

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Cruise Community (subscription required) is reporting that the Panama Canal Authority has officially awarded the first contract for the canal expansion project.

Panama’s Constructora Urbana SA’s winning bid was $41 million with bids going as high as $90 million. Companies and consortia from Panama, Brazil, Columbia, the US, Italy and Mexico submitted bids for the project.

The contract awarded was for the first of the 5 dry excavation projects that will create the access channel for the new Pacific locks. This channel will link a new third set of locks on the Pacific end of the Canal with the Gaillard Cut and is about 16% of the total excavation that needs to be done for the access channel.

When the entire Panama Canal expansion project is completed a new traffic lane will have been built as well as an entirely new set of locks which will not only double the canal’s tonnage capacity but also allow the canal to accomodate significantly larger ships than those that can transit the canal today.