The Panamanian government has declared a state of national emergency in the face of El Nino's impact on the Pacific Ocean. This year's El Nino is forecast to reach its strongest intensity in 40 years, causing the amount of rainwater supplementing 2 reservoirs supplying water to the harbor system to seriously decrease.
Faced with the risk of water shortage, this vital sea route has had to lower the receiving ceiling, starting from mid-September 2026 from 36 ships/day to 32 ships/day. At the same time, functional agencies also tightened the maximum draft from 15.2m to 14.6m to prevent the risk of stranding, forcing shipping lines to proactively reduce carrying capacity.
Technically, each ship passing through the Panama Canal consumes about 200 million liters of water, and all of this water will then be discharged directly into the sea.
Ms. Ilya Espino de Marotta, the new Director of the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), said that ship traffic may continue to be reduced to about 29 trips per day in February or March next year if the drought situation does not have positive changes.
During El Nino in 2023, the canal had to reduce the number of trips back and forth to a bottom of 22 trips/day, but Ms. Marotta said that this year's situation is unlikely to fall into the serious scenario as before.
The paradox is that the pressure to tighten traffic flow occurred right at the time when the demand for using the Panama Canal increased sharply. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz forced cargo owners to look for alternative corridors, turning the canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans into an important backup transit point for international energy ships.
