A maintenance period at the Panama Canal’s Miraflores locks tentatively scheduled for August 29 to September 10 will likely cause long delays for ships that are not booked in advance.
During the last maintenance period, from July 4 to 17 in the Gatun locks, wait times were said to be up to 11 days for non-booked vessels. That maintenance window was extended seven days from the scheduled July 4 to 10.
Current delays for tankers stand at about four days without pre-booking.
A spokesperson for the Panama Canal said the operations team expects that the canal should be able to maintain daily transit capacity at 13 transits a day for super-class tankers with beam lengths of 91 to 107 feet (27.74 to 32.62 meters).
