A gas tanker just paid $5.3m to skip the Panama Canal queue
SK Gas of South Korea bid $5.3 million on 1 September for priority passage of its LPG carrier G. Spirit, smashing the previous record of roughly $4.6 million set weeks earlier, according to Freightwaves. Between October and February, the median auction price for a priority slot was about $55,000. This bid was nearly a hundred times that. The Panama Canal Authority has cut daily transits from 36 to 32 since early September as drought lowers Gatun Lake, right as Iran-war shipping risk pushes more vessels toward the route rather than around it. Unreserved ships now wait up to 17 days, against two days back in February, which is the kind of number that turns a scarce reservation slot into a genuine auction market rather than a toll booth.
Sources
- $5.3 million a new record for Panama Canal transit — Freightwaves
- Panama Canal traffic cut — The Guardian
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