documentary asks whether we've learned any lessons from the h. i. v. epidemic in the fight against coven 19. we ignore the global sucks, to put costs for 4 people, the cost the time. appendix. ready on ologist is the panama canal, in danger of drying low water levels caused by drought or forcing restrictions on the number of ships allowed. the trans cargo deliveries are being delayed and supply chains hit worldwide. so as an alternative waterway needed, this is inside store the hello and welcome to the program. i'm how much i'm jewel. it's a major traffic jam on one of the world's most important shipping routes. hundreds

of vessels are stuck waiting to pass through the panama canal. the growing backlog follows months of drought and central america, low water levels because of reduced rainfall have led to limits on the number of vessels allowed through. the panama canal was opened in 1914 and the 82 kilometer long waterway is an essential cost cutting short cut between the atlantic and pacific oceans. the us, china, chile, and south korea are among the canals, leading customers moving thousands of tons of cargo every day. shipping companies pay around $4000000000.00 a year in transit fees of the canal is the country's main source of revenue, but restrictions have been extended for at least 10 months. that's well into the new year. so with the disruption and delays lead to higher prices in the shops and is climate change a factor, we'll explore that and more with our guests in a moment. but 1st our corresponded alexander, m, p, a. t. as in panama, with the panama canal, is dealing with its worst drought on record sports, seeing its administration to reduce the number of ship allowed to cross in

a daily basis from an average of 3638 to just 32, and also reducing the maximum weight allowed to for a number of these shapes. why is that? it's because the canal while it connects to oceans, it actually works using fresh watts are coming from to artificial lakes. the water level of those artificial lakes is add on historical minimum, which is forcing the canals to ask a series of questions about the future, but to deal with the create crisis. now this will also bring a reduction in revenue for to come out at least $200000000.00 in the next fiscal year. and it's also increasing the cost of shipping. that's because some of the ships remain out of sea for many days, trying to get a spot to add to cross others have to get rid of some of their cargo that has been moved on trucks or trains and it's picked up on the other side of the canal,

all of these costs might end up then into the final price is of the product and end up being paid by the consumers. but there is also here a lot of big questions that are being asked about the viability in the future of the canals that can, i will need to find more sources that have a water sources of water that are shared with the city of panama and its inhabitants and to find the way to deal with these, whether phenomenal, instead of becoming more frequent and more severe. the. all right, let's go ahead and bring in our guests from his office in panama city. next to the canal is lars us to guard nielsen. he's had of operations for north america, enlighten america for the giant shipping and logistics company, immersed in london is james baker. he's containers editor for the maritime information provider and lloyd's list at in daytona beach and florida. john paul rodriguez is a professor at hofstra university in the department of global studies and geography

. he's also a specialist in port logistics and shipping a warm welcome to you all and thanks so much for joining us today on inside story. lars, as we mentioned in the intro there, uh, as i understand that you are able to see at least some of the vessels that would like to enter the panama canal from outside of your office window. i want to ask you, uh, where do things stand as of now, what do we know? how many ships are still trying to transmit through the canal and are waiting and have wait times been improving? so yes, it is correct that i'm, i'm speaking to from panama and i'm near the the theater water side. yeah. so, so certainly the 100 bucks here, it's waving and, and i would say, i don't have an up to date or accurate account right now. but, but we all told him to come out and, and it is probably just above a 100 still waiting to, to cross the come out and waiting, waiting time, cyber quoted the for the residents that are impacted. and perhaps that's the point we should talk about the basement design packet, but the,

it's reported to be around, but 10 days at the, at the, at the current point in time at large. let me also ask you how much concern is there right now when it comes to the kind of costs uh, this will add up to, for the shipping industry and how much of an impact is that having as of now, to? so i think from a, from a container carrier perspective, it's important to understand that actually we do a, in general to get access to the crossings, but the b would cry. so so therefore obviously we're facing some cost in terms of the draft restrictions, which basically means we're using a live a lot of capacity in terms of how much pack a we can carry through. but we actually not face but significant waiting times. so it's not a major concern that the con, funded time for us is on paul panama is about halfway through its rainy season right now. how unusual is what is going on right now when it comes to this drought and, and the time that it has it in the middle of the web season. yeah,

it has been, i would say an ongoing problem for a few years that people are kind of like kind of a t r a t we're talking about. they're concerned about a potential water shortages for year now. and actually the new locks were design with that concert in line. but over the last i would say half a year or so it's been a rather unusual in terms of rainfall. it's probably part of a long term cycle. and eventually the it's going to be but meanwhile there is a less water and therefore less water or less capacity. james, there have been concerns about water shortages in the panama canal. in the past was the drought that is currently being experienced, expected, where there concerns. as you understand that this might happen. and would you say that there is a concern that the panama canal could be in danger of drying up completely? at some point? it's going to drive completely inside and out a lot of times this, this is a significant impact. that's yeah, it's,

it's by the, by, i mean the times that are centrally, so whoever changes the media or does he have a firewall or the car on that? yeah. i'm likely to draw it for a long time. yes lars, i'm going forward. what does this mean for supply chains? i mean, talk about it compared to where it is now and what are the concerns that where it might be a few months from now or a year into this. so yeah, so, so in the immediate future and that the main impact on supply chain is that we are potentially seeing a little bit less capacity available on some of the ross that, that costs us to come out. this is being taken care of on the container segment in terms of actually sending addition of investments that actually phrases best restrictions. so essentially using the own locks and shopping drought continue. and

i think it is important to recognize that the canal has been announcing that they do potentially expect implications for the coming as long as 10 months. and then of course, we will see the potentially less capacity. and what does that mean for supply chains? well it, it means that the, our customers and, and also provide those in the supply chain. we'll have to continue to look for, for potentially, for somebody trinetics to make sure that we keep track of growing. i think it is important to recognize that, that having the draft restrictions independently come out, it is not unusual per say. it one more time. usually this time around is that it seems to be dragging on for, for longer than what we've seen in the past. but, but the companies like, like most and, and all those we are used to dealing with this and then have to make investments in place for how we can adjust the insects of the ship to match the available truck through to come out and jump. all i saw you reacting to some of what lars was saying there and it looked like you might want to jump in, so i'm going to give you that opportunity. yeah, thank you. yes i, i agree quite

a lot when just said that, but also the impact is very, i would say specific to the region and i think it will be her sweet little little annoying back to europe or european supply chains to especially coming from asia board for north american supply chain, that might be a different story, particularly for over let's say the trend specific route. so with the, the, with that one day with east coast, this is where it's going to gonna have started out of an impact in terms of capacity reliability. and eventually, you know, when you're up some capacity, really busy issue, you're not selling a bit more, invent 3 quarter and more planning and, and up to, and bar, incur, initial cost for the importers. james, let me ask you from your vantage point, how quickly can a disruption like this to the canals operation, you know, felt being, as it's rippling through the global economy. yeah, i mean, the civic, i mean, to be honest, i'm not really a bad. yeah. they continue to try to ever get through

their my way to see the oh saw when you're really some fee is oh yeah, they shut down a christmas the goods enough to get through. interesting the word as much as we get a reimbursing for some of the of the drive. oh because i'm taking which i haven't heard around. okay. now that's going to add the distance a lot of fuel to that potentially going to be pretty right. so for those commodities, the impact the container is a james. let me also ask you, um, it's expected that these current restrictions will be in place of the panama canal, for i believe it's at least 10 months. so i want to ask you, um, is that timeline from your point of view, realistic or do you think potentially could be extended or possibly even shortened?

it really just depends on what happens is the way the the canals i'm trying to find ways of saying go to for a long time. ever since it is new los intrinsic, same thing class. nothing's going to be done uh to try to sort of was a no, it really does come down to how much is coming into that catchment area and then just get on my side of the town. so the way of the cost is that you have to change the little through the end of the next race asian, which i think i definitely want to try and stop a life as much as possible. so hopefully that'll be realistic. and then we'll have to see what is driving those are large when we talk about the knock on effect of all this, it doesn't less business revenue for the canal ultimately mean higher prices for consumers and. and if so, when would that expect to be seen when,

when would that impact consumers to so, so certainly, i mean, obviously i don't want to speculate on the revenue stream. so to kind of make a note about that, obviously one could assume that that having less crossings would result in invest revenue for the come out. and i think it's important to, to recognize the. ready canal the structuring gets tired, so i would say i don't personally expect that'd be, would be made with increasing costs from, from crush them to come out anytime soon. and therefore these, for the container segment of the markets. and i don't foresee that this will not have any immediate, the cost implications. i think just james, the expressed, i think the shipments of, of trades of shipping that is more impacted. and that's uh probably where you could see more impact on funding through containerized segments. john paul, one of the questions uh that is coming up right now is if at some point in the future an alternative canal could be built. another way,

perhaps for ships to get from the pacific to the atlantic. now, for a long time, there has been this idea that perhaps there could be a canal built in nicaragua. it's something that's been proposed before, but it has never materialized um. is that something that you believe might be a viable option at some point going forward? at this point is very, very unlikely. the major factor his, the again, you have to bear in mind that the car i've always initially a call some kind of a call and alternative to find out about when the whole system was been designed. in addition was making the canal and find them out because it was of much better solution. any correct boys that much more expensive solutions, it has its own constraint. you are dealing with actually, but for engineering much higher costs. and as a very difficult time to wrap my head around, what will be the cost and the potential, i would say revenue generation, you could get with this project. and that's actually one of the major reason. while

the in the, in the last cycle of concentration, which was around 2014 it with the idea of project was essentially abandon james, what did you say uh, as an alternative waterway ultimately needed and is the idea of a canal being built in nicaragua, at all realistic of the canal is regardless of just the basic geology of the country. so next to for the sake of the engineer when it was last child on there to think about our costs in the range of 75000000000. so that struck me for just shows a lot of we're trying to build a high speed rail, where can they and then you take the one line item that's costing and raising the inside you way through the crowd of less than the is uh the find the ever realistic, so um yeah, what do we need? uh i think so. i think the issue is with

a pad and does this from uh we do. we don't have an own medium. yeah. yeah. i guess i'm like, we'll re so as the, you know, little continued the case. so shipping. uh, just a 2nd. okay. yeah. the, i think we got it, but i'm up to now listed under 24 ships. why say, as all as of today they reduce the number of transit fi, 5 directions. so this is not a lot of it's canal has stopped or is about to saw. so i think, yeah, it does say some perspective on the yeah, well james, let me ask you this when it comes to the ships that regularly transit through the canal, is there a level of concern that exist right now that would cause any of these companies to try to look for alternative routes that are already available and that would be viable to them at this particular time as well. i

the, i mean the us east coast right here coming from detroit goods from china to the, to the size of the direction. uh, it's uh, 5 days longer to come. why? so there's a lot of shipping capacity and a lot of them, i mean, is, and somebody on the thing that we use up some of that a capacity this in the market. and also from there is to south the southeast to ensure it's actually shortly to get us these guys via servers, the kansas, the sell american franchise coming up to your cause. i to rely on coming to the now there are experts who suggest that in order to make the canal a viable in a future with more frequent, extreme weather conditions, infrastructure changes to the canals will ultimately be needed. um,

i wanna get your perspective on this. how costly do you think something like that would be, how long would it take? would it be realistic as an endeavor? and so, so i'm, i'm certainly not an engineer by and i think it was expressed earlier by one of my fellow colleagues on to call you. and that, you know, did come out of has been working on finding ways. and i know they are still working on finding ways to it, to increase the water flows into the support system. and in terms of what that would cost, i simply don't know, but kind of think it also to james's point. it is important that we understand the traits that being supported by the canal and that they are. and so that's it. so. so not only can we say to enter the us east coast that as gains express to the source. and we also have the ability to which move cargo via the us bicycle on the land option across the us, which is something, something that is so used by certain their customers across the us. so there are ways and all that and then simply said and truly can know that that is be used on

that certainly could be an alternative, is this, would that be an issue we have to face for, for us to call john paul, one of the things that was, discuss a lot during the pandemic was how cobit 19 was impacting supply lines. i want to ask you compared to what was going on, then how will this bottleneck impact shippers compared to how much coat with 19 impacted the supply chain and, and what about also the suez canal blockage that occurred in 2021? i mean, when you look at what's happening now compared to what happened during the pandemic and compared to what happened when there was the suez canal block is, where are we at? when i came there, come, it's not comparable, cause it was systematic across the world. i can, it's that was a multiple, a city of effect locked down, change the consumer bad patterns, and so on, so forth on it for a definitive the panama canal situation is again, a capacity issue, which is manager born and predictable. you know,

what's happening, you have the schedules, you have the with a number of crossing for days. so that's, i would say, and i'm wondering when we're waiting on comparable, but it's long term. so it doesn't need impacts on shipping lines on instruction. maybe we have such a situation, major importers and exporters are gonna have maybe change their, their, their routing possibly. but comparing to swift, swift was 61 we blockage which was very unpredictable. and as soon as the was on club, the situation returned to normal, relatively quickly. so again we, it's not comparable and you're getting, you're getting hit with something which is i would say on the radar screen we have very, i would say we're not to be well known timeframe. well, cove is and then say this was going to block edwards rat. to be random in system that take advantage of all out. so let me ask you have the congestion that had been caused by the pandemic when it comes to supply chains. i had a large, we ease before this, panama canal bottleneck. i mean with things essentially back to normal when it came to global supply chains and the shipping industry as far as i can tell. yeah. for

that background full circle, the shipping rates were down. so essentially almost back to prevent demik level. and i guess we were facing a situation over capacity so that that fact we should have current content. that's why don't that there's not that much concern consecutive a video of ship this i wrapped in the over a company time from a handful capacity. lars, i saw you are reacting just now and it looked like you also want to jump in, so please go ahead. right? yes, please. no, because i think it's a, it's a very relevant point. and not only is it relevant to understand that things are essentially back to, to, to pre point they make in terms of congestion having east. i think the other point that that is very relevant is actually did learning spent a lot of the industry players and, and the, the customers office supply chain. so, so the people we are serving have actually, next during de, depends they make and that is to have redundancy and you supply chains on having a ton of tips. and it's one of the things that we're finding now that we are able to offer and turn that to browsing. so unlike a pre call it,

and another of our customers would have basically one option to move cargo from from one part of the world to another. and what has happened is a lot of our customers have found and needs to happen, turn a tips and actually something like the crime. the challenges we are facing is actually showing that that this is very valuable because now we can move cargo by a different means. as i mentioned, we could move it on rail across the u. s. for instance, i'll say it sort of shorts. so, so i think we'd like to learn something to defend democrats now, actually helping us americans this situation. james, i saw you also reacting just now to a large was saying, did you want to jump into this is the one thing. so in the service is not always is a very rare reversing natalie. so contagious, the jewish chemistry service hit down south. okay. but higher and back out through the magic that we're going to the, to the elastic magic save on us. so i just as long as i get it,

yeah, ships, very movable and supply chains. now, if you want to get somebody to meet with us, it's as easy to bring it in for. yeah, even to canada, went to los angeles long page and then ro truck through the way you want it to be. as it is, furniture pieces, uh sorry for the size and try it from there. but as either shipping said, considering the container large, you know, we talked about where things are now compared to where they were in the shipping industry, in global supply chains during the cold and 19 pandemic. we also talked about how, what's happening now compares to the blogs and the see what's going on. but i want to ask you when it comes to, what are the concerns about climate change and how that could impact, you know, supply chains and shipping routes going for? no, i think. and i think by this point in time, but we do have enough evidence that,

that it's clear that that as an industry is or yeah, i'm, i'm talking on, on the shipping industry, but also logistics, of course, that, that community needs to be compromising. i'll operations is very clear and, and i think it's very important that, that we are a cost industry. we take this very chairs and put some very concrete measures in place. and they also don't have initiatives across the industry to, to try and address this as an example. we are having our 1st confidential container isn't actually be the bunker today in front of them. and she's on her way far 1st part starting next month. so the industry is taking steps, this is a long term and demo, but it's very important that the industry and all it was across the industry realizes that this is something that we don't have to take very serious and invest and develop a cost. the distribution example, let me also ask you, i mean i'm a, how much is climate change a factor and all this, how much concern is, is this causing right now? this a subject which is i would say puzzle me a lot because i can,

it's very difficult to assess the again, the expand of the impact of climate change. but what i find the most you could say damaging, is not the dam back of trying to change is the reaction of people are changing supply chain and we thought would be couple nights they should sounds great. but also a may involve a significant higher price energy prices and also a shortages. so that, that they might open, you know, again there's a risk of everything to kind of trans fair enough. but my biggest concern and fear is how the policy maker and government then also the carriers. and among others, i'm going to react and over react to this. and embrace strategies i've made come to be very fun, sustainable and excessively damaging to the welfare of the population. james, let me ask you how much concern is there right now about the potential for broader disruptions going forward? i. this is something that everybody is concerned about is really you know, wait,

wait the vehicle. i'm in the car is having a major manual say it doesn't, you know, one of the things that you're taking infrastructure. yeah. another itself is what happens too often to increase stores, right? i say to so for the levels the teacher level best way to but so far is even kicking off of the way, i think now whether it's going to be reimbursed, a lot of making shipping and so more challenging. so i think the jury is still out the thing. we want to have the directions and try it out at large . if, if shipping becomes much more challenging as you know, whether it's due to climate change or, or other factors. um, how much more difficult does that make things for the global economy? i mean, i know right now there's not a huge level of concern about what's going on when it comes to the panel today. but

going forward, if we're talking worst case scenarios, how, how dire could things get for the global economy? but i think we can look back at the last 2 or 3 years from depend demik we have. busy we saw i may just shift in, in supply and demand, and then we saw what that fits to, to with the cost of logistics and global markets and how that then was a factor. obviously, it's not the only factor, but a factor potentially in an inflationary pressures. but then as a knock on effect on how you, how you conduct your policies, your monetary policies, etc, etc. so certainly it could be effective, but i'd have to say at the current point in time and with the actions that are being taken. i still think that's the scenario that perhaps that is hopefully filed in the future on something that we will never get to. all right, well we have run out of time, so we're going to have to leave the conversation there. thanks so much to all our guest lars, us to god nilsson, james baker and john paul roderick. and thank you to for watching. you can see the

program again any time by visiting our website. i'll just ever. com and prefer the discussion go to our facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash ag inside storage. is it also doing the conversation on x? i handle is at the age and side story from having them drilling a whole thing here. bye for now, the the september. oh no, just india hose, the g 20 summit. where leading economies will discuss global challenges. the broad

costs premier of a new series, exploring the implications of us and those for 1st amendment rights will lead to gathering new york for the un general assembly with the ukraine and the climate change expected to dominique talks. generation sports meets the icons to a challenging preconceptions and using that platforms to change society. the candidates for mexico's presidential election will be announced. will this be the 1st time in the country's history to women go head to head for the top till september on al jazeera, a sense of belonging. we always look for ways to get together. and the everyday heroes, keeping communities together is transforming. the visits is develop a in mexico city, where locals are turning a notorious municipality into an urban utopia. a sense of community on

a just either a climb the stein will to be legal trait. what you have here is not just american logical objects. you're talking about the political damage, where the spoils of war smuggled and sold to watch and houses, and private collectors, buying or selling. i mean, part of the fact is worth finance is to be headings of muslims in the middle east. don't sell, don't buy. that's one quick solution. ok, trafficking on i will just see around the house

the to i'm single venue in the hall with your top stories on alpha 0. but you are a state of florida is bracing the hurricane it dalia residents and some coastal areas have been ordered to evacuate. its already caused a wide spread damage in cuba where at least 2 people have died. if you do choose to stay in one of the evacuation zones, 1st responders will not be able to get you until after the storm has passed. that's right. they're not going to be able to get there until after the storm is passed. so please make decisions that are best for you and for your family. and remember you don't need to travel hundreds of miles away.