Panama Canal - new restrictions

[waterman46]

Sorry, one more post on this then I am done!

Go there and look at the lake. I did. It is not low. I am from CA. I know what a low lake looks like. "Low water" is a scam. But, do use your holding tanks. They drink it.

BTW a nighttime swim in Lake Gatun is a treasured experience!

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by hpeer

If what Paul says above is true, and I have no reason to doubt him, then there is no reason to raise the price.

Clearly management is tying the price increase to the low water. Which means some ships must be excluded, and they want a premium for the remaining ships.

If that’s true then I can understand the Authority does not want to be the arbiter of who gets to go through.

Also I suppose their operating costs are fixed and fewer ships must now meet the overall cost, so the cost/ship goes up.

It becomes a rare commodity and that brings a higher price. But not because operating expenses have risen. Which then is also called gouging.

If they can meet commercial needs with available resources, as I think Paul contends, and without increased operating costs, then there is no NEED for a price increase. They are just using low water as an excuse.

Unless I miss understood Paul.

One man's "price gouging" is an economists supply and demand curve. Not sure why "they" are attempting to justify the price increase if the royal they even are. But it really needs no justification, they were simply undercharging if an increase in price provides an increase in profit. Like every business in the world, the rational thing to do is to increase price until any marginal price increase decreases demand such that it lowers your overall profit. In this case it means that too many boats go around the Horn or don't go. They're probably a good ways away from that right now. They're behaving as any good capitalist would who controls a commodity with substitutes. If they were behaving in more of a communist manner I'm sure they'd get a healthy dose of criticism for that as well?

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by waterman46

With careful scheduling they are able to use a single lockage for both a ship and more than one smaller boat. We went through two weeks ago, still they claim there is a drought, but we were kept overnight in Gatun and handlined down the next day just ourselves plus one ship. What changed?

Yep, they always try and scedule handline vessels in with other larger ships to reduce lockage.

New York Times article on Panama drought
"“The last five months have been the driest dry season in the history of the canal,” said Carlos Vargas"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/c...ama-canal.html

[SCarns]

I lived in Las Vegas a few years back and Nevada Power did something similar...

They encouraged everyone to change to energy efficient appliances to relieve maxing out the local grid, which everyone did. Electrical savings was huge. Energy consumption decreased enough that NV Power noticed a big loss in revenue and so decided to raise the rates.

Same thing here... Fewer transits may save water, but it also means less revenue. Therefore, rates go up to compensate. As in the case with NV Power, if you don't like it, there's nothing you can do about it, except not use the it.

[CarinaPDX]

Originally Posted by waterman46

Go there and look at the lake. I did. It is not low. I am from CA. I know what a low lake looks like. "Low water" is a scam.

But apparently you don't know how the Panama Canal works. The water to operate the locks is collected upstream, behind a different dam (Madden) than the one that regulates Gatun. The water level of Gatun is held constant (low water would affect the depth of the navigation channel, particularly in the cut) - it is Lake Alajuela behind Madden dam that varies with water availability. If you didn't see that you don't know the situation.

BTW a nighttime swim in Lake Gatun is a treasured experience!

A swim in the evening before dark is a treasured experience. After dark it is just stupid - there are lots of caymans there.

Greg

[TabbyCat]

Originally Posted by Paul L

A few years ago when they had low water, they were having handline vessels go through in one day, instead of overnighting in Lake Gatun. This meant some of the transits were nightime.

Yep, one of my 3 transits was at night. At the last minute they called us up and said "We've got a slot avaialabe if you can get here by 6pm and go all the way through" They said the reason for going all the way through was due to a lack of advisers. If you do the daytime transit, they have one adviser take you to Lake Gatun, you spend the night on the bollared, and a second advisor comes out in the moring to take you the rest of the way. Doing it all in one go means they only have to schedule one advisor.