The new locks at the Panama Canal are seeing some transit records broken in relation to vessel size and also in toll fees. In early July Mitsui OSK Line’s newly built 119,031dwt MOL Benefactor passed through the canal on its way to China and paid a record toll of $829,468.
The 337m by 48m ship can carry 10,100TEU, thus is not the largest vessel that can make use of the new locks, with the possibility that a million-dollar toll fee is yet to come.
The 117,366dwt Chinese container ship COSCO Shipping Panama, which inaugurated commercial use of the locks in June, measures 300m by 48.25m and paid $575,545 for its transit. The Panama Canal Authority sets tolls on container ships based on their size and how may containers they are carrying, with the upper limit expected to be about 13,000 TEUs.
