June 27, 2016 - It will enter from the Atlantic Ocean and after few hours exit into the Pacific Ocean.
Following his remarks, Mr. Benitez and the Expansion's project manager Ilya Marotta-who Forbes named as one of the 50 most powerful woman in Central America-answered questions from the assembled worldwide journalists. The amount of steel used could have erected 29 new Eiffel Towers. While others wonder if the new locks are safe.
Neopanamax ships, as their names suggest, are new generation cargo vessels built specifically to pass through the broadened Panama Canal. The expansion project, which began in 2007, is estimated to have cost US$5.5 billion.
Until now, the lock dimensions haven't changed since the Panama Canal first opened in 1914.
The United States and China are the two most frequent canal users.
Panama is also avidly eying the lucrative market of transporting liquefied natural gas between the United States and Asia, principally to Japan.
Currently, the Canal serves more than 144 maritime routes, connecting 160 countries and 1700 ports across the world. "It should be positive for all New Zealand shippers", he said.
This prospect has triggered activity up and down the East Coast.
Annual cargo volumes should double over the next decade, leading Panama to hope to triple the $1 billion in shipping fees it receives each year. If it landed in Los Angeles, it would cost $2,000 to send it across the country by rail.
The Chinese ship won the privilege of making the first transit when it was selected in a drawing among the canal's top customers. With related economic activity, the canal is responsible for about 40 percent of Panama's GDP. The Panama Canal continues to provide the world, global commerce and individual segments with new products and services. Brazil accounted for 54 percent.
The canal is just part of a formidable infrastructure spending program here. "This expansion will reconfigure, permanently, the map of the global shipping industry".
The canal authority will ease in the new locks, allowing only four slots daily for passages. And it is sinking $450 million in urban renewal of poor sections of Colon on the north side of the canal.
The revitalized canal has also spurred vast construction projects at ports on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf of Mexico. "We are the bridge to the world and the heart of the universe", she says, quoting an old promotion campaign and beaming with pride. "When you build a house, you have problems".
Though bigger ships will now fit through the canal, it doesn't mean they'll be filled with more goods, said Greg Miller, a senior editor at IHS Maritime, a publication run by global consultants IHS. Largely because of ship size restrictions, crude oil traffic was significantly smaller, and fairly equal in direction, with 3.0 million long tons going southbound and 2.6 million long tons going northbound (from the Pacific to the Atlantic).
"It's important to remember that the canal does not create demand".
Jorge Luis Quijano, administrator of the Panama Canal, said at a press conference on Saturday that this expansion, which will be inaugurated on Sunday, will open up new opportunities in sectors such as logistics and ship repairs. The Panama Canal expansion has coincided with New Zealand ports either carrying out or preparing to carry out dredging work to increase their own capacity.
The canal builders came up with an elegant, though partial, solution.
He added: "Deep down, we're afraid the locks will fail someday".