Chinese Company wins 100 year lease to fund and build the Great Nicaraguan Canal

This canal project, if successful, will have big economic implications for Nicaragua and may affect Panama. Any military implications would be to the US' benefit as there is no power that is capable of challenging the US if it really wants to use the canal or Nicaragua one way or the other.

The canal will be useful, obviously, and certainly represents an alternative to the Panama canal, but how important is the increased capacity of the canal for normal shipping purposes (are there a lot of ships in the 130k-250k range)? Thx

RahultheWaffle said:

The canal will be useful, obviously, and certainly represents an alternative to the Panama canal, but how important is the increased capacity of the canal for normal shipping purposes (are there a lot of ships in the 130k-250k range)? Thx

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Ships such as supertankers and large cruise ships are reaching the point where even the upgrades to the Panama canal might not allow them to pass through, so a larger Nicaragua canal would essentially be the only real alternative to going around the straits of magellan.

Or alternatively just go through the UN and put a permanent cap onto the size that ships can reach as internationally agreed upon law.

RahultheWaffle said:

are there a lot of ships in the 130k-250k range? Thx

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That big and larger.

You have your Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) vessels. There are currently approximately 350-400 VLCCs in operation and they range in displacement from 200,000 tons to 320,000 tons. Typically, VLCCs carry 2.1 million barrels of oil, the largest VLCC can carry approximately 3.1 million barrels.

There are larger vessels still, the Ultra Large Crude Carriers (ULCCs) which are from 320,000 to 550,000 tons. There are perhaps 100 or so of these.


Above is the ULCC Knock Nevis(Jahre Viking), the longest ULCC supertanker ever built. It's specifications are simply almost too big to believe.

Displacement: 657,019 tons (Full Load)
Length: 458.45 m (1,504.10 ft)
Beam: 68.8 m (225.72 ft)
Draft: 24.6 m (81 ft)

And here is the Front Century VLCC tanker, displacing in excess of 310,000 tons. She is one of a five-ship double-hulled series of VLCCs constructed for Frontline by the South Korean builder Hyundai Heavy Industries.

Here so video analysis on the canal.

[video=youtube;nyFMMXoXB8o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyFMMXoXB8o[/video]

In the video I posted above Panama Canal can only handle Panamax ships after renavation. By 2020 80% of Mersk ships will be triple E. Panamax's can only transport 4800 containers while triple E's carry 18000 containters which the HK Nigcaraugini canal is designed to accomadate.