The venerable Suez Canal was opened in 1869. A remarkable achievement, it reduced travel distance between Asia and Europe by as much as 4,300 miles. In the post–World War II years the canal was beginning to show its age—not so much in the condition of its infrastructure as for its decreasing capacity in a world full of increasingly larger, more efficient ships.
About 18,000 ships a year now transit the canal, carrying 8 percent of the world’s trade. But in recent years traffic has been increasingly limited by width and depth factors. Insufficient width meant traffic could move in only one direction at a time. Depth limits meant that larger vessels could not be accommodated, even though trends in the global maritime industry were toward bigger ships.
In August 2014 the Egyptian government began an $8 billion upgrade program to create “the New Suez Canal.” It was to take three years; however, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ordered it to be completed in one year. And it was; the canal became operational this past August.
In building the parallel canal, existing waterways were retained and upgraded as much as possible. In addition, a parallel 22-mile canal section was dug to replace part of the existing waterway.
The canal’s depth was increased to 79 feet and its width to 673 feet. The New Suez Canal is now the world’s third-largest international passage for petroleum transit, at 4.6 million barrels per day supplying two-thirds of Europe’s petroleum.
The Panama Canal, not quite as old as Suez, opened in 1914, the great engineering achievement of its day. But like the Suez, it was increasingly capacity-limited.
In the post–World War II years it became more apparent that the aging “Big Ditch” needed a major upgrade. It was limited in the size of vessels it could accommodate. Meanwhile, the global maritime industry was developing bigger and better vessels that could not pass through the existing locks.
While the canal moved 14,000 ships per year, accounting for 5 percent of all world trade, it was losing market share. For example, it is estimated that 37 percent of the world’s container ships cannot pass through it. In 2006 the government of Panama approved an upgrade program that began the following year. In 2009, work began on installing two new sets of larger lock complexes at the Pacific and Atlantic ends of the canal. In addition, through extensive dredging there was widening and deepening of the related waterways. These works will double the capacity of the Panama Canal.
The $5.3 billion (and it may be more) project is running two years late due to contractual and technical problems. It is now 90 percent finished with an expected completion date of April 2016.
About 300 miles northeast at Lake Nicaragua, a Chinese company says it will invest $50 billion to build a 173-mile canal through the lake from the Caribbean to the Pacific Ocean. It’s not a new idea, and had in fact been considered several times since the Spanish colonial era.
Though approved by the Nicaraguan government in 2013, there are serious financial, cultural, and environmental concerns related to this project. Most serious is a lack of any observable funding. Reportedly, the primary investor’s personal fortune was reduced by as much as 85 percent during China’s economic downturn.
Token digging began in early 2015, but nothing else has been done. Yet the stated completion date is 2020. Clearly that is not possible. Furthermore, experts believe that the upgraded Panama Canal makes it unnecessary to have another canal nearby.
Finally, there is Russia’s continuing development of its Northern Sea Route across the top of Siberia, which can save up to 4,000 miles of transit distance between Russia and Asia. Decreasing sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, use of Russian icebreakers, and employment of Russian ship pilots mean this route may be usable for six to seven months of the year. In 2014, 31 merchant ships used the passage though 25 of them were Russian. This is modest traffic compared to the Suez and Panama shortcuts, but usage forecasts show that Northern Sea Route traffic will increase steadily.
These three maritime shortcuts are quickly accommodating the changing nature of global maritime traffic. And perhaps on some distant day, even China’s canal in Nicaragua may become a reality.