Panama government takes full control of its ‘second canal’　パナマ政府、「第2の運河」を完全掌握

Crude unloaded in Atlantic, piped 131 km across isthmus and reloaded onto tankers in Pacific

大西洋で原油を降ろし131キロ横断、太平洋で再びタンカーへ

　The Panamanian government has taken full control of an interoceanic transport route that could be described as a “second Panama Canal” dedicated to oil transportation. Petroterminal de Panamá (PTP) allows crude oil and other petroleum products to be unloaded from tankers on the Caribbean side, transported 131 km across the Isthmus of Panama by pipeline and loaded onto another tanker on the Pacific side.

■The full article covers the following points (approximately 2,000 Japanese characters)

→ Ships do not transit the canal – only the crude crosses the Isthmus of Panama through a 131 km pipeline. How does this “second canal” work?

→ Unloaded in the Atlantic and reloaded onto a VLCC in the Pacific – the little-known oil logistics network capable of receiving vessels of up to 320,000 dwt on both coasts

→ The route once carried more than 2.7bn barrels of Alaskan crude. Why was the direction of the pipeline reversed, and how did it evolve into the system operating today?

→ The Panama Canal moves to cut daily transit slots for only the second time in its history – as drought again affects global seaborne trade, PTP’s strategic value comes into focus

→ LNG carriers, VLGCs and car carriers are also affected – what could Panama’s combination of a canal and an oil pipeline mean for Japanese shipping deployment strategies?

Photo courtesy of Petroterminal de Panamá (PTP), iStock

(The full article is available to subscribers in both English and Japanese. The Japanese version follows the English article.)

パナマ政府、「第2の運河」を完全掌握

大西洋で原油を降ろし131キロ横断、太平洋で再びタンカーへ

　パナマ政府が、石油輸送に特化した「第2のパナマ運河」ともいえる大洋間輸送ルートを完全掌握した。カリブ海側でタンカーから原油などを荷揚げし、全長131キロのパイプラインでパナマ地峡を横断、太平洋側で別のタンカーに積み込むペトロターミナル・デ・パナマ（Petroterminal de Panamá、PTP）だ。

■記事本文では以下の内容を読むことができます（記事全文約2,000文字）

→ 船は運河を通らない――原油だけが131キロのパイプラインでパナマ地峡を横断する「第2の運河」の仕組みとは

→ 大西洋で荷揚げ、太平洋で再びVLCCへ――最大32万重量トン級を両岸で受け入れる知られざる石油物流網

→ かつてアラスカ原油27億バレル超を運んだルートは、なぜ輸送方向を逆転させ、現在の姿になったのか

→ パナマ運河は史上2回目の通航枠削減へ――渇水が再び世界の海上物流を揺さぶる中、浮上するPTPの戦略価値

→ LNG船、VLGC、自動車船にも波及――「運河」と「石油パイプライン」を持つパナマは日本の配船戦略に何をもたらすのか

（続きは英語と日本語で書かれた有料版の本文でお読みください。日本語の記事は英文記事に続いて掲載されています）