After seven years of construction, the Expanded Panama Canal is now officially open for business.
The official inauguration was held yesterday, June 26th 2016, with the Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela, Panama Canal Administrator and CEO Jorge L. Quijano, together with Canal employees, heads of state and dignitaries from around the world, attending the ceremony.
The inaugural transit began with the passage of Neopanamax vessel COSCO Shipping Panama through the Agua Clara Locks on the Atlantic side of the country and concluded with its transit through the Cocoli Locks on the Pacific side.
The new Panama Canal, an addition to the waterway built more than 100 years ago by U.S. army engineers, represents the biggest and most complex engineering work in decades.
With the price tag of $5.25 billion, the project required 50 million cubic meters of excavated earth, 290,000 tonnes of steel, 4.8 million cubic meters of concrete and more than 100 million working hours.