Mega-terminal pre-qualification

The preliminary design for the facility is for it to occupy up to 113 ha and comprise 1,600 m of berths with 15 m depth alongside and a throughput capacity of 2.4m teu. The terminal will be state-of-the-art and capable of handling the largest generation of post-Panamax vessels in today’s order book and will provide Panama with additional capacity to capture increasing transhipment demand.

Likely to cost in the order of US$600m for the initial stage, the project is being handled by the Office of the President of Panama in conjunction with the Panama Maritime Authority and the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) as part of the country’s maritime strategy.

The project has been controversial from day one, with one argument against the proposal is that there will not be sufficient volumes for another mega transhipment terminal in Panama, particularly when the PPC/Cristobal/MIT developments are completed. It is argued that there is not, nor will there be for many years, sufficient cargo on the west coast of South and Central America to justify two mega-terminals at the Pacific end of the of Panama Canal, namely Balboa with 4.5 teu capacity and the proposed new mega-terminal with 2.4m teu capacity.