Following the recommendation made by the Panamá Canal Authority Board of Directors, the Cabinet Council of the Republic of Panamá has officially approved the proposal to modify the Canal toll structure. Alan Lam reports.

After more than a year of informal consultations with representatives from various industry segments, public hearing, and an open call for comments, a new toll regime has been agreed upon. The revised structure will price each vessel segment based on different units of measurement: dry bulkers, for example, will be based on their deadweight tonnage capacities; LNG and LGP carriers will be based on cubic metre capacities; tankers will be based on Panamá Canal Universal Measurement System (PC/UMS) tons and metric tons for cargo; and containership will continue to be based on TEUs.

There is no notable change in the passenger ship toll structure: tolls for cruise vessels will continue to be levied based on berths or PC/UMS. In addition, a new Intra Maritime Cluster segment has been created to include local tourism vessels and other types of ships that are not in competition with international trades.

Broadly speaking, cruise ships using the current Panamax passage will be charged $138 per berth, while those using the new post-Panamax locks will pay $148 per berth.

The new adjusted tolls are scheduled to come into force on 1 April 2016.

On 28 April the Panamá Canal widening project reached a new milestone with the installation of the last of the 16 floodgates for the new locks on the Pacific side. These steel gates were manufactured by Fincantieri in Italy. The Canal is now 85% complete, with 87.6% of all required components already installed.

On 7 May 2008, the cargo ship MSC Fabienne set the record of being the ship that has so far paid the highest toll on Panamá Canal, having paid $317,142 for its passage. Prior to that, the record was held by the cruise ship Norwegian Pearl, which, on 7 October 2007, paid $313,000 for using the Canal. The record for paying the lowest toll was set in 1928 by Richard Halliburton who swam the Canal over a period of ten days, paying just $0.36. The current average tariff is about $54,000 per vessel.

USA, China, Chile, Japan and South Korea are the main Canal users.