Panama Canal’s Locks to Undergo Scheduled Repairs

The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) informed that the east lane of Miraflores Locks will be out of service for a period of ten days due to scheduled dry chamber repair work.

Beginning in the evening hours on July 31 until August 10, 2017, the repair work on Miter Gates 104, 105, 120, and 121 would be undertaken. During this period, Miter Gates 122 and 123 will also be installed in position 120-121, ACP said.

Concurrent with the lane outage at Miraflores Locks, a culvert outage will take place on the east lane of Gatun Locks, in order to perform repair work on rising stem valves 207, 223, 228, 229, and 244. The east lane of Gatun Locks is scheduled to be out of service for bulkhead installation starting in the evening hours on August 3 for a period of 10 hours.

On August 10 the Gatun Locks lane will be out of service for bulkhead removal, and is scheduled to return to normal operations on August 11.

As a result, and in accordance with the rules governing the Transit Reservation System, Condition 2 for the Panamax locks will be in effect during the repair works.

The slots available for regular vessels less than 300 feet in LOA will be limited to two, regardless of transit direction, and vessels awarded these slots will not be allowed to request a daylight transit.

The booking slot available through the auction process, and the slots for Neopanamax vessels, will continue to be offered during this period, ACP informed.