New Suez Canal, 2015
The 2015 parallel channel and deepening programme, what it changed in convoy scheduling, and the dredging that followed.
The New Suez Canal is the parallel channel and deepening programme completed in 2015, which gave part of the canal a genuine two-way reach for the first time and cut the waiting a convoy imposes on the ships behind it.
The operational point is throughput rather than size: the programme did not raise the maximum ship the canal can take, it raised the number of ships the canal can move in a day and shortened the wait at each end. Further dredging and widening has followed, including work on the southern reach after the Ever Given grounding of March 2021 closed the canal for six days.
The full article will cover the scope and cost of the 2015 programme, its financing, the kilometre range of the parallel channel, the measured effect on convoy waiting and daily transits, and the deepening and widening work that has followed it.