LNG

Feb 27 (LNGJ) - The Panama Canal will be nearing 90 percent completion of its expansion project by the end of the first quarter of 2015 and is on schedule to be operating in early 2016 for LNG carrier trading traffic from the Atlantic Basin to Asia. The work includes two new lock complexes with a total of 16 gates, eight on the Pacific side and eight on the Atlantic side. Under the new tariff system, LNG carriers of around the optimum 172,000 cubic metres capacity for using the Canal for the first time will pay a total of $680,480 for round-trip transits, delivering a cargo from the US Gulf Coast or the Atlantic Basin to the Far East and returning with ballast.