Panama president says canal expansion to open in May

The expanded Panama Canal is expected to be inaugurated around May this year, said President Juan Carlos Varela in a speech released by the presidency.

The expansion includes dredging and construction of the canal's third set of locks at both the Pacific and Atlantic ends, among other works, that will increase the canal's vessel-handling capacity to 13,000 from 5,000 TEUs.

The opening date has been pushed back on several occasions and further doubts began to surface late last year when seepage in the new locks at the Pacific entrance was detected in September.

Disagreement between the Panama government and project builder GUPC related to cost overruns has also created doubts regarding the inauguration date.

In the latest tiff between the two sides, GUPC claimed the launch depended on the "goodwill" of the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) to sort out administrative and financial differences related to the contract, after which ACP director Jorge Luis Quijano said the construction consortium was insinuating it would abandon the project.

GUPC has said the seepage problem would be fixed in January.

Assuming the expansion is inaugurated in May, the project would be around 550 days behind schedule and around US$550mn over budget.