Supply Chain Research

The Panama Canal Authority has authorized a further widening of the beam of vessels that can cross the Canal as it seeks to improve its competitive position versus the Suez Canal. The latter has seen a strong start to 2019 with a 9.6% year over year rise in the number of vessels using the Canal in March. While the number of container vessels using Suez fell there was an increase in the scale of vessels. As a result total volumes rose 3.6% and reached a record average 116.7k tons per vessel. The outlook for both Canals will be a function of Asia-to-U.S. East Coast traffic volumes, which f...