Panama’s New Pipeline Could Bypass Its Own Canal

The Panama Canal lifts every ship that crosses it over a mountain, using fresh water, and in 2026 the rain that fills it ran short at the exact moment the Hormuz war pushed American oil and gas the long way around, through Panama instead. On the 1st of September a gas carrier paid $5.3 million, a record, for a single slot through the locks. Now the Canal Authority that collects every one of those tolls is tendering a 76 km pipeline designed to carry cargo past its own canal. In this video we map the two crises that hit the canal in the same year, what the pipeline would actually carry (propane, butane and ethane, not oil or LNG), why the Authority that owns the canal would pay up to $4 billion to help ships skip it, and why there is nowhere else on Earth this cargo can realistically go instead. Panama already owns a pipeline that does almost exactly this, running at a twentieth of capacity, and bought the rest of it outright in September. The new one is still at the tender stage; no bidder has been confirmed. CHAPTERS 0:00 A canal running low on rain 0:58 How the canal spends its water 2:31 A second crisis, out of nowhere 3:57 A pipeline competing with its own canal 7:16 Shipping isn't convinced 8:26 The pipeline Panama already has 9:46 Nowhere else to go 10:36 Panama's ports change hands too 11:38 What actually changes Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. SOURCES Panama Canal Authority (ACP) releases, via pancanal.com S&P Global Platts, interview with Administrator Ricaurte Vásquez, 4 Mar 2025 Bloomberg (first to report the $5.3 million record slot) Lloyd's List (the pipeline scepticism piece) gCaptain, Newsroom Panama, Pipeline & Gas Journal, Seatrade Maritime Reuters via Investing.com, Argus Media, Maritime Executive US EIA, World Oil Transit Chokepoints and Today in Energy Panama Ministry of Economy and Finance (mef.gob.pa) Watch next: Turkey's Plan to Replace the Strait of Hormuz With One Pipeline And: Iraq Is Reviving the Pipeline America Bombed to Escape Hormuz Who controls the route, controls the money. Subscribe for new videos on the chokepoints, pipelines and trade routes that move the world's oil and goods. #PanamaCanal #Geopolitics #Shipping