Panama Canal Expansion Research Articles

NAVIGATING CHANGE: INVESTIGATING THE ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS OF PANAMA CANAL EXPANSION

The expansion of the Panama Canal, completed in 2016 with the introduction of the Third Set of Locks, represents a significant milestone in global maritime infrastructure. This original article, titled "Navigating Change: Investigating the Economic, Social, and Environmental Implications of Panama Canal Expansion," provides a comprehensive analysis of the far-reaching impacts associated with the monumental project. The study examines the economic analysis, explores changes in shipping costs, shifts in global trade patterns, and the contribution of the expanded canal to Panama’s national revenue. It evaluates the social consequences, including the effects on local communities, workforce dynamics, and regional development initiatives. Furthermore, environmental ramifications, focusing on the increased water usage, potential for pollution, and ecosystem disruptions due to larger vessel traffic. Through a multidisciplinary approach, this research paper presents a nuanced understanding of the expansion's impacts. The findings highlight the complexities and interdependencies of economic, social, and environmental factors, offering valuable insights into the broader implications of large-scale infrastructure projects. This study aims to inform policymakers, industry stakeholders, and academics about the sustainable development challenges and opportunities posed by the expanded Panama Canal, contributing to the discourse on balancing economic growth with environmental stewardship and social equity.

Panama Canal expansion and Florida seaports: the role of seaport preparation and dry ports in post-expansion success

Panama Canal expansion and Florida seaports: the role of seaport preparation and dry ports in post-expansion success

Panama Canal expansion and Florida seaports: the role of seaport preparation and dry ports in post-expansion success

Panama Canal expansion and Florida seaports: the role of seaport preparation and dry ports in post-expansion success

Dredging of Harbours and Rivers: Review of Practices and Associated Environmental Impacts.

Dredging of harbors and rivers is essential for waterway accessibility and infrastructure enhancement. This review explores key aspects of dredging, including types, applications, environmental concerns, mitigation strategies, and insightful case studies. This paper highlights the importance of dredging in improving water transport and related sectors. It covers diverse dredging types and applications such as Maintenance dredging, Capital dredging, Environmental dredging and Land Reclamation showcasing their adaptability to different project needs. It examines environmental issues linked to dredging and proposes effective mitigation methods. These measures address sediment disturbance, habitat disruption, and water quality degradation. There were two case histories which are The panama Canal Expansion and The Rhine river dredging in Europe illustrating practical dredging applications. These cases offer insights into both successful practices and challenges encountered during project execution. This, summarizes key findings and provides sustainable dredging recommendations. These include enhanced planning, monitoring, and the integration of eco-friendly technologies.

Measuring the causal effect of Panama Canal expansion on Latin America and the Caribbean's economic growth: a Bayesian structural time series approach

PurposeThis study provides empirical evidence on the impact of the Panama Canal expansion (PCE) on the economies of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries, particularly in light of the emergence of larger container ships such as neo-Panamax and post-Panamax vessels.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses the Bayesian structural time Series (BSTS) model to evaluate the economic effects of the PCE on 21 countries within the LAC region. It utilized the World Bank's gross domestic product (GDP) figures between 2000 and 2019 as the primary variable, alongside the human development index (HDI) (X1), container throughput (TEU) (X2) and unemployment rates (UNEMPL) (X3) covariates. This allowed a precise and robust approach to analyzing time series data while accounting for uncertainties and allowing the inclusion of various components and external factors.FindingsThe findings revealed that the PCE has a positive and statistically significant impact on most countries within the Caribbean Transshipment Triangle, ranging from 9.2% in Belize to 46% in Cuba. This suggests that the causal effect of the PCE on regional economies was not confined to any specific type of economy or geographical location within the LAC region. Where the growth rates were statistically insignificant, primarily in some Latin American countries, it coincided with countries that are primarily driven by exports and service industries, where bulk and oil tanker vessels are likely to be the main carriers for exports rather than container vessels.Originality/valueThe practical implications of this research are crucial for various stakeholders in the maritime industry and economic planning. The factors influencing economic growth resulting from investing in maritime activities are vital for decision-makers to create policies that lead to positive outcomes and sustainable development in regions and countries with flourishing maritime industries. The methodology and findings have significant implications for governments, managers, professionals, policy-makers and investors.

Maritime connectivity, transport infrastructure expansion and economic growth: A global perspective

Improving transport connectivity has become increasingly significant to international trade research and transport policy agendas. Little has been done so far to investigate the direct association between maritime connectivity and economic growth, let alone the exact effect magnitude. As the connection between ports, local economies, and global logistics networks becomes ever closer, the economic role of port connectivity deserves closer attention. This paper uses the Panama Canal expansion as a quasi-natural experiment, and proposes a dynamic difference-in-differences (DID) method for making causal inferences about the impact of port connectivity on regional economic growth. This study leverages data mining of multiple sources of satellite data to provide innovative measures of ship movement, port area, and economic activity. We construct an index based on the global shipping network data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) to measure the extent to which the ports are exposed to the canal expansion. This allows careful handling of the endogeneity problem. Change in the port area is used as a proxy for port capacity expansion, and is identified via satellite imaging. Night light data provide a measure of regional economic activity around the ports, and of the effect of port connectivity on regional economic growth. Our findings suggest that improvements in port connectivity have a significant and fairly durable stimulating effect on regional economic growth, and that port infrastructure expansion is one potential channel for realizing this effect.

The Panama Canal Expansion

The Panama Canal has played an important role in the history of the shipping industry. Therefore, it was reasonable to forecast that the Panama Canal expansion would impact port throughput in the six transshipment ports located in Panama. To examine this impact, two periods were analyzed. The first period covered October 2010 to June 2016. The second period covered July 2016 to March 2022. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test and the IBM SPSS Statistics software were used to analyze public data from the Central American Maritime Transport Commission (COCATRAM) measuring port throughput. The research concluded that the Panama Canal expansion has not produced a statistically significant impact on the port throughput of (a) cargo tonnage, (b) cargo TEU and (c) vessel calls.

A connectivity-based approach to evaluating port importance in the global container shipping network

This paper proposes a framework for evaluating the strategic importance of container ports based on their connectivity. The Container Port Connectivity Index is computed and decomposed into components according to the Liner Shipping Connectivity Index—each reflecting its contribution to the overall port importance score. The framework produces separate scores for each component, thus allowing port stakeholders to better comprehend why a particular port has become important, and for what reasons. The decomposition approach also allows more detailed analyses, and explanations of the impacts of major economic phenomena—i.e., the expansion of Panama Canal or the crumbling of Hanjin shipping—on the relative importance of ports within the Global Container Shipping Network, as more explanatory variables become available. Our computational results indicate that, while the connectivity of ports related to these events is impacted, changes on connectivity rankings could be adequately explained by the proposed decomposition scheme. The inbound connectivity of New York, for example, was slightly improved after the Panama Canal expansion—from the 29th place in Q1/2016 to the 24th place in Q2/2016—due mainly to the rise in the larger capacity of ships calling. However, in Q3/2016, its inbound rank returned to the 29th place, which was mainly due to the decline in the number of liner services available, number of liner companies, and number of ships calling. The effects of Hanjin’s bankruptcy, on the contrary, were more localized and relatively brief.

Economic Impact of Investment Scenarios in the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System

The McClellan–Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System (MKARNS) is challenged by an aging infrastructure and by limited maintenance budgets, all of which cause transportation delays. In this study, the Maritime Transportation Simulator (MarTranS), which is a hybrid of agent-based modeling, discrete-event simulation, system dynamics, and multiregional input-output analysis, was adopted to model the relationship between the components of the system and economic impact factors. Real-world scenarios were analyzed to explore the economic impacts of various patterns of investment in the MKARNS. These scenarios include a base scenario (in which the system infrastructure remains unchanged and no future investments are made), investment scenarios (e.g., investing in deepening of the navigation channel, port expansion, and lock/dam rehabilitation), and a demand-change scenario focused on the impacts of the Panama Canal expansion. The results reveal that the MKARNS under current circumstances is not sustainable in the long term and that future economic investment is needed if it is to continue operations. In addition, among the different system components, locks/dams are the primary sources of system delays, so these should be targeted for investment and reconstruction to sustain and enhance the beneficial economic impacts of the system.

Assessment of port efficiency within Latin America

The Panama Canal expansion has influenced the development of ports within the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region, intending to capitalise on economic opportunities through seaborne trade. Examining port performance is essential to ascertain the PCE impact on port efficiency within the LAC region. Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) was used to determine the technical efficiency of the 19 major ports within the LAC from 2010 to 2018. The result indicates that, among the four (4) port performance indicators (berth length, port area, the number of cranes (STS gantry and mobile), and the number of berths), the number of STS gantry cranes and berth length had the largest and most significant impact. Some ports with high technical efficiency experienced TEU losses despite port infrastructural development and privatization. The findings also revealed that the increased competition among regional and US East and Gulf Coast ports has negatively impacted some LAC ports’ TEU volumes due to port proximity. The dynamism of the maritime sector, especially containerization, requires ports to implement value-added services and logistics centers in tandem with port performance indicators to remain sustainable and competitive in the maritime industry.

Impact of the Panama Canal expansion on Latin American and Caribbean ports: difference in difference (DID) method

The expanded Panama Canal opened on June 26, 2016. This expansion is the third set of locks that enabled the canal to double its capacity through the addition of new traffic lanes, which allowed neo-Panamax and some post-Panamax vessels to transit across the canal. The widening of the canal has increased maritime traffic within Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Major ports in the regions have made huge investments in port expansion and infrastructural development to accommodate neo-Panamax vessels. In this study, we investigated the impact of the Panama Canal expansion (PCE) on the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) ports by using the Difference in Difference (DID) method. This impact was evaluated for 100 major and regular ports within the three sub-regions of LAC, namely Caribbean, Central, and South America, before and after the treatment effect, that is, the PCE. The findings from the model revealed that the average container port throughput (TEUs) for the treated ports (DTrp) was more than that of the controlled ports (CONTp) with transshipment hub, Central America, and South America having 20%, 12%, and 34% growth, respectively, since the PCE (the treatment) except for the Caribbean ports (DTrp), which experienced losses of 8% within the LAC region from 2010 to 2019.

Complementarity (Not Substitution) between Natural and Produced Capital: Evidence from the Panama Canal Expansion

AbstractNatural capital, and its substitutability with other forms of capital, occupies the heart of the sustainability debate. The existing theoretical and empirical literature in natural capital ...

Did the Panama Canal expansion benefit small U.S. ports?

This study uses public data on U.S. container ports from 2000 to 2017 and a fixed effect model to investigate the indirect effect that the expansion of the Panama Canal may have had on the import volumes of relatively small ports in the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. The larger number of megaships going through the canal after its expansion increases the number of incoming containers for relatively large ports that are able to service these ships. This increase in traffic for large ports could indirectly affect the number of incoming containers for smaller ports depending on their proximity to these larger ports. Our results indicate that small ports close to a large port benefitted from the canal expansion, but only when they are very close. Examining broader definitions of proximity revealed that small ports that are much farther from a large port also benefitted from the expansion.

Smart and Sustainable Logistics Ecosystem of Panama: A Conceptual Model

Greta Thunberg highlighted in her speech during the COP 2019 the lack of integrity about the goals of the countries in emission reduction when vessel and aircraft transportation has a great impact over pollution and none of them were addressed, that is the case of multimodal logistics systems in the world wide world. The question is What are Latin-American multimodal Logistics systems doing about it? Latin America has a great model in Pollution reduction and optimization of operations because Panama is working for decades to reduce emissions in the Panama Logistic ecosystem. For example, Panama Canal expansion increased the efficiency of movements in global commerce while reducing the impact of emissions. During the decade of 2010s, the Panama Canal took the risk to expand the canal to a third set of Locks and a new type of vessel arrived, the Neo-Panamax, which increased the capacity per vessel from 8,000 TEUS to 15,000 TEUs. Panama is increasing the awareness about the logistics impact over the emissions, but there are still challenges because of the increment of 87.5% of the load movement into the Logistic hub of Panama, and there is a need to address real-time information about the performance of the Distribution Centers, the ports, and the interaction with the Logistic ecosystem to increase efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions. Thus, the main objective of this research is to summarize the journey of the Panama Logistic Innovation path that results in a conceptual model of Smart and Sustainable Logistic Ecosystem (SSLE).

A preliminary analysis of U.S. import volumes and regional effects associated with the Panama Canal expansion

This paper examines the regional impact of the Panama Canal expansion on U.S. import volumes by using a fixed effect model and panel data for U.S. container ports from 2000 to 2017. The increasing number of larger vessels traversing the expanded canal increases the number of containers for relatively large ports in the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Our results reveal that the expansion of the canal increased import volumes by an average of 24.2%, compared to ports in the Pacific Coast. Various robustness checks reduce our estimations, but they remain statistically significant.

Cost and Scenario Analysis of Intermodal Transportation Routes from Korea to the USA: After the Panama Canal Expansion

This study is aimed at suggesting the most economical transportation route by comparing seven different Korea–US intermodal transportation routes for automotive parts exported to Southeastern USA. To keep up with the global competition of parts makers, which are expanding their markets based on advanced technology and enormous capital, Korean automotive parts makers also need to actively advance their markets overseas. From this point of view, selecting an efficient transport route and transportation modes for overseas export is essential. To this end, the most efficient transportation route from the perspective of total logistics cost was selected by adapting the inventory-theoretic model, using information such as the logistics status of a specific company and the logistics freight rates and transit time for the third quarter of 2019. Thus, the scenario analysis was conducted assuming that variables—namely transportation cost per unit, commodity value, inventory cost and additional conditions such as terminal free time—were modified. Through this study, the optimal transportation route was selected by fully considering and predicting the total logistics cost component and the variability of the major factors.

Oversupply Concerns in Global Shipping Industry: Evidence from the 2016 Panama Canal Expansion

Oversupply Concerns in Global Shipping Industry: Evidence from the 2016 Panama Canal Expansion

A destination choice model for very large gas carriers (VLGC) loading from the US Gulf

Abstract This study is one of the first to model energy shipping destination choice behaviors and identify their associations with various market factors from charterers' perspective. The paper uses very large gas carriers loading from the US Gulf as an illustration. Attributes include freight rate, propane price spread, bunker costs and number of ships in the destination areas. It also identifies the effects of the Panama Canal expansion on destination choices, by dividing sample data into two sub-periods: pre- and post-expansion. Furthermore, both aggregate and disaggregate analysis for different ports are provided. This work draws significant implications for energy transport planning. Understanding the charterer's choice of destinations is vital in determining traffic flow to a specific destination and in forecasting supply patterns. This model can be applied to other downstream commodity shipping segments with available arbitrage opportunities, less sticky trade flows and active traders.

Basic Analysis on the Change of Container Ship Movement and Containerized Cargo Flow by Panama Canal Expansion

Basic Analysis on the Change of Container Ship Movement and Containerized Cargo Flow by Panama Canal Expansion

Study on the Impact of the Panama Canal Expansion on the Distribution of Container Liner Routes

The expansion of the Panama Canal will have a profound impact on the container shipping route network, port layout and ship structure, and promote the evolution of the global shipping pattern. However, most of the research on the expansion of the Panama Canal currently stays before its real expansion, and the quantitative analysis is less and the result is not accurate, because previous research used data that expanded before. Based on the actual data after the expansion of the Panama Canal, this paper uses the dual-target route distribution model to analyze the expansion of the Panama Canal. The changes in the liner shipping plan that have a greater impact on the shipping industry will provide the relevant theoretical basis for the relevant entities. The results show that after the expansion of the Panama Canal, the largest 15,000 TEU container ship is currently deployed on the route through the Panama Canal. 6500 TEU ship type is also deployed on the route through the Panama Canal. The 8500 TEU, 10,500 TEU, and 12,500 TEU ship types are mainly deployed through the Suez Canal. On the route, such a distribution plan can maximize the benefits for the shipping company.