Panama Canal drought of 2023 and 2024
The first transit restrictions in the canal's history: the 2023 slot reductions, the draft cuts they were designed to postpone, and the recovery through 2024.
The Panama Canal restricted transits for the first time in its history in 2023, when rainfall in the Chagres watershed failed to sustain both the authorized draft and the normal transit count. Capacity fell to approximately 32 vessels per day from 30 July 2023, and October 2023 precipitation was the lowest on record since 1950, at 41 percent below normal.
The full article will cover Advisory to Shipping A-48-2023 of 30 October 2023 and its descending slot schedule, which the Authority published down to 18 transits per day from February 2024 and then never implemented, the stated purpose of the slot cuts as a way to postpone further draft reductions below 13.41 m tropical fresh water, and the recovery announced on 15 December 2023. It will also treat the freight market response and the interaction with the contemporaneous Red Sea diversions.