THE Panama Canal has broken its own record a month after setting it when Hong Kong's 13,926-TEU OOCL France came through the waterway that opened its expanded lock system nearly a year ago.
Measuring 366.47 metres in length and 48.23 metres in beam, the OOCL France was transiting the canal from the Pacific side.
"This trend towards the transit of 13,000 TEU or greater vessels demonstrates the acceptance and trust that the shipping industry has with the service provided by the expanded canal," said canal administrator Jorge Quijano.
As this is OOCL France's first transit through the waterway, the Panama Canal honoured the vessel with the Green Connection Award in recognition of its commitment to emissions reductions by using the Panama Canal route.
By using the waterway, the vessel helped reduce 5,000 to 26,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in comparison to alternative routes.
To date, a total of 1,360 neopanamax vessels have transited the expanded canal. Within this total, containerships represented 43.8 per cent of traffic, followed by liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carriers and liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers, which represent 29 and 8.1 per cent, respectively.
The previous record for largest box ship was set on May 2 by the 13,345-TEU Cosco Development, deployed on the new OCEAN Alliance's weekly South Atlantic Express (SAX) service, connecting Asia-US east coast ports via the Panama Canal.
The SAX service is operated by 11 vessels, ranging in size from 11,000 to 13,000 TEU. The OOCL France is the second vessel in this service to transit through the expanded canal after the Cosco Development earlier in May.