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09 Nov 2018 / Panama Canal, Panama

Record annual cargo tonnage in Fiscal Year 2018

The Panama Canal closed its 2018 fiscal year (FY 2018) with a record tonnage of 442.1 million Panama Canal tons (PC/UMS), which represents a 9.5% increase from the previous year.

With this tonnage, the Panama Canal surpasses the cargo projections of 429.4 million PC/UMS tons for FY 2018, as well as the 403.8 million PC/UMS tons registered in FY 2017…

…The increase was driven by the transit of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and natural liquefied gas (LNG) carriers, containerships, chemical tankers and vehicle carriers.

The container segment continued to serve as the leading market segment for tonnage through the Canal, accounting for 159 million PC/UMS tons of the total cargo, of which 112.6 million PC/UMS tons transited the Expanded Canal. Tankers, which include liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers, represented the following market segment with 130.3 million PC/UMS tons.

The next leading segments included bulk carriers, 73.7 million PC/UMS tons and vehicle carriers, 49.5 million PC/UMS tons.

In terms of cargo tonnage, the main routes using the Panama Canal in FY 2018 were between Asia and the U.S. East Coast, the West Coast of South America and the U.S. East Coast, the West Coast of South America and Europe, the West Coast of Central America and the U.S. East Coast and intercoastal South America.

The main users during FY 2018 were United States, China, Mexico, Chile and Japan. A total of 62.8% of the total cargo transiting the Canal has its origin or destination in the United States.

(For information about operations in Panama, contact GAC Panama at [email protected])

Source: Extract from Panama Canal Authority – www.pancanal.com – October 2018 Monthly Canal Operations Summary dated 8 November 2018

If quoting any content from Hot Port News, please cite GAC Hot Port News as the source.

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