MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Panama to start work on Canal expansion

The first bid in a 5.2 billion-dollar project to widen the Panama Canal was issued on Friday to a Panamanian company, officials said.

Minister of Canal Matters Dani Kuzniecky told reporters, "Today, with this bid, begins the project to widen the canal." Cusa won a 41 million-dollar bid to dig 6.7 kilometers (4.1 miles) of new channel in the 5.2 billion-dollar Panama Canal modernization to accommodate larger ships. The Panamanian company, formally known as Constructora Urbana SA, won out over 13 Asian, European and US consortiums for the right to move an estimated 1.3 million cubic meters (46 million cubic feet) of sediment and earth on the Pacific side of the canal. Work is to begin in 2008 and end in 2010. The overall plan is to build lanes and a third set of locks to accommodate the world's supertankers as well as larger cargo ships carrying 12,000 containers each, as opposed to the 5,000 containers carried by Panamax ships, the largest that can currently run the canal. The project, controversial for its environmental impact, is expected to take 10 years. The United States built the canal in 1904-1914 and administered it until 1999, when it was handed over to Panama. Some 14,000 ships annually use the Central American shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, avoiding the journey around South America.