Alma Solís
asolis@noticiasdepanama.com
September 18 will be the first industry session on the gas pipeline; October is planned for a ports outreach; and November brings a return meeting on the pipeline to refine the tender.
A series of meetings will be held between logistics-industry participants and the Panama Canal, starting with the already announced session this September on the gas pipeline project. In October, a similar meeting is planned to discuss the ports the Canal intends to tender (Corozal and Telfers), and in November there will be another session on the gas pipeline.
According to Canal administrator Ricaurte Vásquez, the first technical presentation to industry will take place on September 18: “It is not a public event; it is an outreach… And we will do that on the 18th of this month.”
Vásquez said: “What we are going to present is the definition of what a gas pipeline project would be: terminals on the Atlantic and the Pacific, the pipeline linking those terminals, and the estimated capacity volumes.” The goal is to present the physical definition; the business model, bidding timeline, requirements and legal framework will be developed afterward, based on market feedback.
Speaking at the Inside LatAm: Panamá 2025 event organized by Moody’s in Panama City, Vásquez said the invitation is aimed at gas operators, players with experience in terminals and pipelines, and buyers, to gauge the availability of long-term contracts that can support financing.
After the September session, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) expects a return meeting in November on the gas pipeline: “You already understood the size of the project… come back in November and tell us how we can improve it.” That round is meant to close technical and commercial gaps before the request for proposals.
October meeting on ports
In parallel, the Canal aims to hold a market outreach on ports in October. On the bidding date, the administrator was direct: “We do not have a timetable for the ports tender.”
The administration described an iterative, market-oriented procedure: “We cannot go out with a tender that the market will not receive… If the market tells us, ‘we are not interested from the start,’ then it stops there.” In the meantime, the ACP will present, listen to “what they like, what they don’t like, what they would improve,” and decide what best serves the interests of the country and the Canal.
Asked by SNIP Noticias about the earlier reference to potential revenues in the US$1.4–1.7 billion range, the administrator explained that figure refers only to the gas pipeline project. The pipeline math starts from volume: “If you are moving 1 million, 1.5 million barrels per day… that is what is calculated… That is from the gas pipeline. Nothing else. And if we combine all the projects, it would be much more.” For ports, he mentioned an “aspirational target” of US$350–400 million per year.
“And it is exactly the same thing we are doing with natural gas. We are going to go to the market and ask the interested parties what volume they can guarantee,” he said.
On port operations, several alternatives remain on the table: from leasing the asset to a concessionaire that would run the entire operation, to a model operated by the Canal itself. Asked which option is being favored—whether with the Canal as operator or not—he replied: “I don’t know; it depends on the complexity. The Panama Canal does not have experience operating ports. That is the starting point. We do not have that experience. Panama has experience managing ports—it’s something we should not minimize. Panama has 30 years of operating ports.”
“We have a range of options. On one end, you simply lease the property and the concessionaire does everything—this black box. And at the other end, you have the Panama Canal, operated by the Panama Canal. The problem there is that the Canal does not currently have the experience to do that. Between one end and the other, there are four options in the middle.”
He explained they are evaluating some of those middle-ground options and recalled that, in the case of the Corozal port, one of the intermediate options was used in the RFP taken to market about 10 years ago. They are starting from that RFP, although he cautioned that conditions have changed and the design will have to adapt.
“When we have the first market outreach and see how complex it is to build the RFP, then we can move forward. We cannot go out with a tender that the market will not receive,” he said.
English translation with the help of artificial intelligence. See the article in Spanish.
Traducción a inglés con ayuda de inteligencia artificial. Ver nota en Español
Fechas clave: Canal de Panamá fija acercamientos con el mercado por gasoducto y puertos
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