The Panama Canal is a new milestone, with the transit of the largest container ship by the new locks.
This is the OOCL France, which has a capacity of 13,926 standard containers of 20 feet (TEU) and 366.47 meters long and 48.23 meters wide breaks the record and becomes the vessel with greater capacity and ability to navigate through the canal locks Extended.
Jorge Luis Quijano, the administrator of the Panama Canal, said that "this trend towards vessels of more than 13,000 containers demonstrate the acceptance and confidence that the shipping industry has with the service we are providing with the expanded Canal."
This container ship surpasses the mark that had established the past 2 of May of 2017, the ship Cosco Development, a neo Panamax of 13,345 TEU's, with 366 meters of length and 48 26 of the sleeve.
The OOCL France moved north on Wednesday (towards the Atlantic) and like Cosco Development, is located in the new service of the South Atlantic (SAX) of the new alliance OCEAN Alliance, on the route From Asia to the east coast of the United States and includes in its rotation the ports of Hong Kong, Yantian, Ningbo, Shanghai, Norfolk, Savannah and Charleston.
The Panama Canal delivered to OOCL France the Green Connection Award, which recognizes ships that comply with environmental efficiency standards, reducing 5 thousand to 26 thousand tons of CO2 compared to the conventional routes that existed before the enlarged Canal.
Since it's opening last June, a total of 1,360 neo Panamax vessels have used the expanded Canal, of which 43.8% correspond to container ships, 29% liquefied petroleum gas, and 8.1% liquefied natural gas.
Replies
Yes, the Panama Canal is the crown jewel of Latin America making it both the shipping and financial hub of the Americas. Its free trade zone is the second largest in the world next to Hong Kong's. At full capacity 10% of all world trade will traverse the canal.
The incredible history is well documented by the University of Florida:
http://ufdc.ufl.edu/pcm/all/brief/