One shipping company has paid a staggering $2.4m to secure a Panama Canal transit slot at auction.
The price was revealed in an earnings call by VLGC owner Avance Gas’ chief executive Oystein Kalleklev.
Payments of $2m had previously been reported in November by canal authority ACP.
Delays have continued to dog the vital waterway, forcing owners to take drastic and costly measures.
The standard fee for transit is about $400,000, but ACP offers one or two vacant crossing times through the neo-panamax locks to the highest bidder each day.
The owner in the present case has not been identified.
ACP told Bloomberg in an email that the $2.4m is not even a record level.
The auctions are generally won by LNG or LPG carriers.
“You can skip the queue but it’s immensely costly,” said Kalleklev.
“It’s gone rapidly up. When you add the regular fee, you’re getting close to $3m to get your ships through,” he added.
Avance Gas said waiting times at the canal in the second quarter averaged 6.5 days northbound and 5.25 days southbound.
Panama has been hampered by a long period of drought from May, which has severely affected water levels in Gatun Lake, from which fresh water is released to the canal and through the locks.
This has forced ACP to impose draught restrictions and cut the number of transits each day.
