TODAY PANAMA NEWS – Four other gates for the Panama Canal expansion will be ready next month, according to a report by the administration of the waterway, which confirmed the Sun Rise ship sailed yesterday from Italy with the third shipment.
According to the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) the shipment will take between 25 to 30 days to get to Panama and complete 12 of the 16 gates that will be used in the construction of the third set of locks.
These gates are much larger and heavier than those used in the current channel and are distinguished from them because they are sliding gates and not hinged.
The 16 gates forming part of the third set of locks of the Canal expansion, are built by the Italian company Cimolai, subcontractor of Unidos por el Canal Group, at a cost of $ 350 million, which includes the maintenance brackets to hang on the niches.
Cimolai reported using about 50 thousand tons of steel in the 16 mechanisms, and that on each side of the Canal – Atlantic and Pacific- eight sliding gates of different sizes and an average weight of 3,500 tons, about 58 meters long, 10 wide and 33 high will be installed.
Last month Panamanian workers reached a new milestone in the expansion of the Canal when they mobilized the first of the giant gates into the lower chamber of the locks on the Atlantic side.
It was a very complicated operation that involved moving the gate from the dock where he was landed up to the lower chamber by a special concrete ramp built only for that purpose.
