Panama Canal under strain
Drought-related freshwater shortages at the Panama Canal are forcing draft and cargo limits that are rerouting ships or reducing loads, adding a new climate-driven chokepoint to global shipping. Reports say the canal still recorded thousands of high‑draft transits this year, but operators are managing throughput with restrictions that raise transit time and cost. (The Financial Express) (La Prensa Panamá)
The Panama Canal is moving more ships again, but the waterway is still rationing freshwater in a trade route that depends on rain-fed lakes to lift vessels through its locks. (prensa.com) The canal logged 6,284 high-draft transits in the first half of fiscal 2026, from October 2025 through March 2026, up 3.66% from 6,062 a year earlier, La Prensa Panamá reported. Panama Canal Administrator Ricaurte Vásquez said in March that traffic had been running at 36 to 38 transits a day. (prensa.com) Container ships accounted for 1,422 of those transits, up 52.08% from 935 in the same period a year earlier, and most of them used the larger Neopanamax locks. Liquefied natural gas carriers made 33 transits, up 73.68% from 19 a year earlier. (prensa.com) That rebound followed the canal’s 2023 to 2024 drought crisis, when low water at Gatún Lake forced the Panama Canal Authority to cut traffic to 24 vessels a day on November 7, 2023, down from a typical 34 to 36. The United States Energy Information Administration said some ships were diverted through the Suez Canal or around the Cape of Good Hope. (eia.gov) The canal works like a water elevator: each lockage uses freshwater from Gatún Lake to raise or lower ships between sea level and the lake. The Panama Canal Authority said in June 2025 that rainfall had lifted Gatún and Alajuela lake levels, but it also said the water crisis persisted and that it was pursuing long-term water projects including the Río Indio reservoir plan. (pancanal.com) The drought restrictions were eased in stages as water levels recovered. On August 6, 2024, the canal authority raised the maximum allowable draft to 49 feet and increased total daily transits to 35 vessels. (pancanal.com) The canal’s latest shipping advisories in 2026 are focused on booking rules and lock scheduling, not emergency drought cuts, a sign that operations have stabilized from the worst of the shortage. The authority’s advisory page lists monthly operations summaries for December 2025, January 2026, and February 2026, along with booking-system changes issued this year. (pancanal.com) But the weather risk has not gone away. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center issued an El Niño Watch, and Reuters reported on April 9 that a mid-2026 El Niño could again reduce rainfall in Central America, putting Gatún Lake and canal capacity back under pressure. (gcaptain.com) For shipping lines, that leaves the canal in a familiar position: busier than it was during the drought, but still tied to the level of a freshwater lake. The same route that carried more than 6,200 high-draft ships in six months can tighten quickly if the rains fail. (prensa.com)
