Ocean Oct 11, 2026 · 7 min read

Panama Canal adds one daily slot from 15 October

Panama’s extra slot on Thursday is a breather before the next dry season. From Thursday 15 October the Panama Canal offers 33 daily transit slots, up from 32. Its bigger Neopanamax locks get a tenth slot. On 28 September the canal also raised the deepest allowed Neopanamax draft (how far a ship sits below the waterline) to 49 feet. We think this is a short breather, not a recovery. The canal says a water deficit persists. Ships without a booking “may therefore face indefinite delays”. Strait of Magellan traffic rose more than 70% year on year in August and September. Our call: new cuts to slots or draft before end-February 2027.

Panama’s 33rd slot buys a few weeks, and the 2027 dry season is the real test
From Thursday 15 October the Panama Canal will offer 33 transit slots a day, up from 32. The extra slot goes to the Neopanamax locks, the newer and larger lock set that handles the biggest container ships. They move from nine daily slots to ten. The change was set out in Advisory to Shipping A-36-2026, dated 28 September.
The same advisory raised the maximum draft for Neopanamax ships to 14.94 metres (49.0 feet), effective immediately and until further notice. Draft is how deep a ship sits below the waterline. A deeper draft lets a ship carry more cargo on each crossing.
Our view is simple. This is a breather, not a recovery. The canal is easing because rainfall has been close to average. It is not easing because its water problem is solved. Forwarders should use the next few months well and plan for tighter conditions again in early 2027.

What changes on Thursday

The canal sells transit slots through a booking system. Ships reserve a date in advance. A small number of slots are sold at auction. Ships without a booking wait in a queue for whatever capacity is left.
The advisory’s slot table shows how the 33 daily slots split. Neopanamax ships get 10, including one auction slot. The older Panamax locks get 23 across two size classes, again with auction slots. The extra Neopanamax slot is offered in the booking period 14 to 8 days before transit.
The draft change matters as much as the slot. In early September the Neopanamax limit was 14.63 metres, according to Seatrade Maritime. That is about 48 feet. ICIS put the level just before the latest change at 48.5 feet. The normal standard is 50 feet, according to Port Economics, Management and Policy.
Every foot counts. The textbook Port Economics, Management and Policy estimates that a Neopanamax container ship drops from about 12,500 TEU at 50 feet to about 7,500 TEU at 44 feet. TEU means twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard measure of container capacity. That is a 40% cut in what one ship can carry.

Why we call it a breather

Start with the canal’s own words. Its 28 September announcement says the water deficit continues in the canal watershed. It says the booking system “remains the only way to guarantee a transit date”. It adds: “Vessels without a reservation may therefore face indefinite delays.”
That is not the language of an all-clear.
The water numbers explain the caution. The canal’s locks run on fresh water from Gatun Lake, a man-made reservoir. Each ship that passes uses lake water. On 20 August, Maritime Executive reported that Gatun Lake stood at just over 84 feet, about one foot below its five-year average for August. It reported that accumulated rainfall in the current hydrological year was down 34% and that inflows to the watershed were down 44%.
Things then improved a little. ICIS reported on 29 September that Gatun Lake levels were “slightly above” the 10-year average and that rainfall was close to average. That is what made room for the extra slot and the deeper draft.
But the same ICIS report said the canal is preparing for drought linked to a developing El Niño, a warming of the Pacific that tends to bring less rain to Panama. It said the canal is considering steps for 2027. ICIS also noted that in past El Niño years, including 2023–24, the worst effects showed up in the year after.
Maritime Executive reported in August that NOAA, the US weather agency, projected the current El Niño would become a Super El Niño by October, with nearly a 70% chance of becoming the strongest on record by the end of 2026.
Panama’s wet season runs from May to December, according to FreightWaves. So the lake has a few more weeks to fill. Then the dry season starts, and the lake drains with every transit.

The 2023–24 playbook

Forwarders have seen this before. In the 2023–24 drought, the canal cut the maximum draft from the 50-foot standard to around 44 feet, according to Port Economics, Management and Policy. The same source says the canal averaged 38 transits a day before the drought. That fell to 24 in November 2023 and recovered only to 27 by March 2024.
FreightWaves reported in April 2024 that the canal’s reservoir system had its driest October in at least 73 years in 2023. It also reported that average delays at the Port of Savannah rose from about 3 days in May 2023 to nearly 9 days in late March 2024, citing project44 data. Nearly half of container volumes from China and East Asia bound for the US East Coast pass through the canal, according to the same report.
This year the cuts have been shallower so far. Seatrade Maritime reported that daily transits fell to 34 on 4 September and to 32 on 15 September. Thursday’s change takes that to 33. That is still well below the 38 a day of normal years.
The cost of getting through has also climbed. Maritime Executive reported in August that unbooked ships were waiting an average of 8.5 days northbound and 7.7 days southbound. It cited Bloomberg reporting that an LPG carrier, SK Shipping’s G. Arete, paid a record $4.6 million for an auction slot. Earlier in August, a Seaspan container ship chartered to Ocean Network Express won a slot for just under $4 million.

Ships are already going the long way

The clearest sign that shipowners do not trust Panama is the Strait of Magellan. Bloomberg reported on 7 October that traffic through the strait, at the southern tip of South America, rose more than 70% in both August and September compared with a year earlier. The figures came from Chilean Navy data.
Kenneth Loh, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, told Bloomberg: “The drought in Central America has certainly been the primary culprit.” He said shipowners have been paying high fees to skip queues, and described the Magellan route as “a natural alternative” for ships avoiding restrictions, long queues or high fees.
Loh also said trouble in the Middle East is pushing some operators on South America–Asia and West Africa–Asia trades to avoid that region, which adds to Magellan traffic. And the Chilean Navy expects the rise to continue as cruise season starts.
So two pressures point ships the same way. Some avoid Panama because of the drought, and some avoid the Middle East. Our view: that leaves fewer good options for Asia–US East Coast cargo.

What it means for forwarders

The extra slot helps at the margin. Services that are booked through the canal get a bit more flexibility. Deeper draft means carriers can load more boxes on each Neopanamax ship, which should ease some space pressure on Asia–US East Coast and west coast South America loops that use the canal.
But one slot is not a reset. Here is what we would do now.
Ask carriers which loops hold canal bookings and which do not. A booked ship has a date. An unbooked ship can sit in a queue for more than a week, as the August waits showed.
Quote transit times with a buffer on Panama routings. The canal’s own notice warns of “indefinite delays” for ships without a reservation.
Watch for carrier surcharges. Auction slots costing up to $4.6 million have to be paid by someone. Carriers will try to pass those costs on if they keep needing auctions.
Keep alternatives priced. US West Coast ports with rail inland, and all-water routings via Suez where carriers still use it, are the obvious fallbacks for East Coast cargo. Shippers with flexible timing should consider moving cargo for the first quarter of 2027 earlier, while the canal has more capacity.
The US is the canal’s biggest customer. ICIS reported that in 2024, 52% of canal transits had a US origin or destination, and more than 76% of cargo passing through had the US as origin or destination. Any new cut lands mostly on US trade.

Our call

We expect the Panama Canal Authority to announce a new cut to daily slots or to Neopanamax draft before the end of February 2027, as the dry season and El Niño draw down Gatun Lake. We also expect Strait of Magellan traffic to stay well above last year’s levels through the end of 2026. Forwarders who lock in booked canal services and buffers now will be in better shape when that cut comes.

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