LatinNews Daily - 27 July 2023

* The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) has announced that it will lower the daily transit capacity of the canal to an average of 32 vessels, as the country undergoes a prolonged drought. The ACP will also extend limits on the draught of vessels, maintaining a depth limit of 44 feet (13.41 metres) over the coming months, unless weather conditions deviate significantly from their current projections. Limiting both the number of vessels transiting and their permitted load will reduce the revenue generated by the canal, which contributed US$2.5bn to Panama’s national treasury in the 2022 fiscal year. In a statement, the ACP said that it has been implementing procedures to improve the water efficiency of its operations, while carrying out studies to identify “long-term solutions” for climate variability. Despite taking these steps, it added that the current severity of the situation is without “historical precedent”.