Close to completion are the works of expansion of the Canal started on 2009, so we recap Humiclima´s intervention in this project that since its execution has created about 30.000 jobs.
Once opened, the Canal will have two new locks so to increase its current capacity allowing the crossing of ships with deeper drafts. The new locks are wider than the existing ones what will enable about 10/12 Neopanamax ships pass through the Canal, meaning about 40 transits a day.
The program consists of, among other components, widening and deepening the existing lanes of traffic located at Gatun Lake and both access from Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, as well as the dredging of Culebra Cut (the narrowest site of the current Canal).
Humiclima has carried out the installation of the fire extinction equipment for the third set of locks, each lock with levels or chambers, and each lock chamber with three water-saving basins (60% of the water in each transit will be reused).
Our work has been developed at both sides of the Canal (Pacific and Atlantic sides) with two different teams working in unison and being supervised by our Project Manager.
With a distance of 80 km between both sites, the project has also been quite complicated at an organizational level since each site is divided in other 10 different locations (4 fire equipment rooms, control towers, back-up building, maintenance building, fire monitors*, catch basins and foam makers*) what adds some difficulty to the control of scenarios, personnel, logistics and even movement within the same site because workers must cross the locks from time to time.
There is a distance of 11 meters between the fire pumps and their engines, being their assembling also a challenge.
The fire protection system is technically complex also as its installation, just as an example, there is a distance of 11 meters between fire pumps (about 5.000 kgs each) and their engines being their assembling also a challenge. We have also worked with piping manifold of 20” diameter half a meter width and 1000kgs weight, to handle and weld them must have been made with care and patience because they are tasks that take long time.
The project is to be inaugurated quite soon. The expansion has been managed by ACP (Panama Canal Authority) what means that the project is completely Panamanian. The Canal is a national symbol, because of it, they win their independence from Gran Colombia in 1903 although, at the same time, it has always represented a kind of tug-of-war between Panama and USA. At the time the Canal was managed by the US, lands surrounding the Canal were also considered US territory, that was an open wound that crossed the country from North to South. In 1999, the Canal finally passed into Panamanian ownership what implied not only having complete sovereignty all over its country but also the chance to prove that Panama was capable to manage this great infrastructure; in addition, 100% of benefits remain in the country. Anyway, the Canal was built by US companies using US money so this project is a source of pride.
*Fire Monitors: A fire fighting monitor is a device 10 mtr long, nozzle tip ended that launches the foaming agent directly over the ships crossing the Canal in case of fire.
*Foam Makers. Foam makers are nozzles placed on the side walls of the Canal, they spray the foam agent over the water in case of fire produced by flammable liquids.
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